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POEMS 


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BY 

WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON 

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AUTHOR OF “THE EPIC OF SAUL,” “THE EPIC OF PAUL,” 
“THE EPIC OF MOSES,” ETC. 


FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 

New York and London 


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F^scalvsd from 
'copyright Office. 

15 OCT 191V 




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FRANK JEWETT MATHER 


THE MOST CHIVALROUS OF FRIENDS 













CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Foreshadowings (His) . i 

Foreshadowings (Hers). 4 

Pilgrimage. 6 

“ How Beautiful !”. 8 

The Poet’s Mine. 9 

Salve! Salvete! . 10 

Good Cheer. 11 

John’s Poem.13 

The Wife’s Vigil.23 

Consolation.•.27 

A Picture of Memory .30 

A Dedication.33 

The Vale of Otter. 35 

Neshobee.37 

The Clear Pearl.39 

The Island of Tranquillity.40 

The Northern Lights.42 

The Wolves’ Feast.44 

The Song of Runaway Pond 49 

Auguries. 58 























VI 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Preparation ..60 

Our Christmas Morn.62 

The Old Year and the New.64 

A New Year’s Trifle.67 

Dedicated.69 

In an Album.72 

How we Came Together.74 

Desiderium.78 

A Remembered Teacher .81 

Life of His Life.82 

Grace, not Nature.85 

A Regret.86 

The Open Guild of Letters.88 

Courage . . .*.94 

To J. H. V.96 

Suggestion.97 

Moriturus.98 

Vanitas Vanitatum .99 

Tears.100 

Whose was the Blame?.101 

Mine was the Blame.103 

She Dreams and He Interprets.106 

Mary, not Mine.108 

A Sabbath at Sea .no 

H. G. W.. 

Tides.113 

My Open Polar Sea.115 

Whosoever ..117 

Love and Will.119 































CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

At the Supper. 124 

Enticed. 127 

Dedication Hymn.131 

Anniversary Hymn.132 

National Hymn.134 

Webster: an Ode.139 

To the Republic: an Ode.177 

The Spanish Soldier’s Farewell.193 

The Cry of the Philippines.196 

The Answer of the Republic.201 

Even Yet.203 

What Doest Thou?.207 

Speak Out, O Mother Mine !.210 

It is Not All Too Late.214 

A Vanished Voice.219 

Survival.220 

A Sabbath, a Morning, and Spring.222 

John Greenleaf Whittier.226 

Our Star-Bestudded Sky.227 

Requiescit in Pace.230 

Patience !.231 

Sans Peur et Sans Reproche.232 

A Comrade. 236 

Apud Se Ipsum.238 

The Birth in Bethlehem.245 

Knight-Errant.252 

A Character.254 

The Silent Tribes.255 

H. B. M.258 































viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Perhaps.259 

The Wounded Fruit Tree.260 

Because of the Angels.263 

Eheu I. 264 

Parable.265 

William Cullen Bryant.266 

A Baptismal Hymn.267 

Self-Judged.268 

Heirship.270 

The Secret of the Lord.272 

An Easter Hour with Paul.285 

A Vision of Judgment.307 

Christ in Me.317 

Grace for Grace.318 

To James Russell Lowell.320 

Home from the Hay-Field.321 

Heaven Was Not Deaf.322 

George William Curtis.324 

Myrrh.325 

A Liegeman of the Lord.326 

Sailing.327 

Power by Repose.329 

Aspiration.330 

“And He Was Not, for God Took Him”.333 

A Prince in Israel.334 

Experiments in Literal Translation of Homer . . 335 
The City Mouse and the Country Mouse .... 340 

Thunderbolts.344 

From Klopstock’s “Messiah”.346 



























CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

Klopstock .348 

“Alone I Wandered” (from Goethe) .349 

The Brier-Rose Broken (from Goethe).351 

Epigram from Boileau.353 

Epigram from Musset (Alfred de).354 

A Quatrain from Victor Hugo.355 

The Oak and the Reed (from La Fontaine) . . . 356 

L’Envoi to “The Lotus-Eaters”.358 

Some Stanzas of Keats’s.360 

A Son’s Farewell . . . ..362 

A Modern Greatiieart.364 

Chrysalis.366 

O Elder Brother.368 

Sabbaths. A Simile .370 

A Revery (L’Allegro’s).372 

Ascendency.374 

A Parable of Joy.376 

A Grave, Sweet, Gracious Soul.378 

Thanksgiving.379 

Phillips Brooks.382 

Christus Vindex.383 

W. M. T. 388 

But —.389 

A Goodly Tree.390 

To Benedict Arnold.391 

John Hall.392 

Dwight Lyman Moody.393 

Eugene Bersier.394 

Who?. 395 





























X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

His Choice. 396 

Yet an Agreeable Person.397 

Henry Parry Liddon.398 

Which? .399 

John Henry Newman ... 400 

Transfigured.401 

The Apostle Paul.402 

Jesus .403 


T. W. 

Afterward.407 

C. R. W. 

Hark. 411 

To a Walnut Tree in October .412 














LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


Frontispiece 

"Where the Brook and River Meet” . Facing page 4 
“ How Beautiful ! ”. " 8 


J. G. W. 

Proctor Falls . 

The Vale of Otter. 

Scala Santa Falls . 

M. B. A. 

J. H. V. 

J. G. B. 

"When Sabbath Bids the World Repose” 

H. G. W. 

Daniel Webster. 

John Albert Broadus . 

John Greenleaf Whittier. 


S. A. E. 

J. H. B. 

George Dana Boardman . . 

H. B. M. 

Moses Coit Tyler. 

William Cullen Bryant . . 
James Russell Lowell . . . 


10 

35 

36 

78 ' 
82 
96- 
98 
100 
112 
138 
220 
226 
230 
232 
252 
254 

258 

264 

266 

320 






















LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


xii 

George William Curtis . 
Howard Crosby .... 
Adoniram Judson Gordon 
Richard Salter Storrs 

Alvah Hovey.. 

Phillips Brooks. 

W. M. T. 

Alexander McLaren . . 

John Hall. 

Eugene Bersier. 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
Henry Parry Liddon . . 
John Henry Newman . . 

T. W. 

C. R. W. 


Facing page 324' 

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326 1 

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3 2 9 

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334 

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382 

a 

388 

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390 

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398 

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406 

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POEMS 


FORESHADOWINGS (HIS). 

I sit and sigh, but not with idle pain ; 

I have outlived the callow heats of youth; 

The time of buds that go to come again 
Is past with me, and I desire the truth. 

The deep, deep truth of long, long love I need ; 

I have no heart to waste in fruitless bloom, 

But all my heart I have for love indeed, 

And all my heart goes forth to meet my doom. 

What can I do, but sit and fold my hands ? 

I hear no footfalls of the one to come— 

Else I would rise and run through many lands 
To meet her coming, and to lead her home. 



2 


FORESHADOWINGS {HIS). 


What do I long for ?—since I know not whom ; 

I long for peace from longing, and for rest; 
Whether that I grow old—I find in room 

Of venturous pinions now a homesick breast; 

Homesick, though not with retrospective pain, 
Hollow with hunger for a home to be, 

Breaking for longing toward a sweet refrain 
Forever borne o’er an enchanted sea. 

This wind and wave has worn my youth away ; 

’Tis long to anchor by the Blessed Isles;— 

Yet there I dreamed for me a future lay 
Securely glad in one sweet woman’s smiles. 

Oh, inaccessible lady charmed from me! 

I see thee sit at evening by my fire, 

A light of wifely welcome circling thee, 

As home I draw to answer thy desire. 

I see thee there, my queen of feast and grace, 
Throned at my board, dispense the Attic cheer 
I look across and watch thee in thy place, 

Mine, and so fair—so queenly, and so dear. 


FORESHA DO WINGS {HIS). 


3 


I hear thee sing clear carols of the hearth, 

Pensive and sweet, in tender twilight glooms ; 

My children love the music more than mirth, 

And gather in from all the darkening rooms. 

Steals on a holier household hour than all: 

Thy children grouped about their mother’s chair, 
Upon thy knees with them I see thee fall— 

Most beautiful among thy childrefn there! 

I talk with thee alone—I stroke thy hair— 

I read thy eyes—I fold thee to my breast; 

We mix our mutual dreams, and purely share 
Love lapsing on through all our raptured rest 

The days go onward ever, sun and rain ; 

The nights between them follow, cloud or star; 
The same to us, no matter loss or gain,— 

Each unto each what naught could make, can mar 

And we grow old together, in my dream, 

Like blended rivers placid toward the sea— 

Alas, but now my lone divided stream 

Still hither, thither, roves in quest of thee ! 


4 


FORESHADOWINGS (HERS). 


\ 


FORESHADOWINGS (HERS). 

My maiden visions curb their airy flights, 

And droop their pinions and come back to me ; 

That first fair world, with all its young delights 
And morning hopes, they can no longer see. 

My girlhood’s world lies lost beneath the flood 
Of light, bright days that fell like silver rain, 

Swollen from the fountains of my womanhood, 

Now broken up, not to be sealed again. 

But lo! another world, as fair, more calm, 

Arisen like Delos, floats upon the wave ; 

I bare my brow to breezes blowing balm, 

And smile through tears above my girlhood’s grave. 

A tender longing, full of gracious pain, 

A want more rich than wealth possessed before, 

Delicious rumors rife in heart and brain, 

And rosy warmths that flush me more and more ; 











FORES HA DOWIHGS ( HERS ). 


5 


A sense of incompleteness, new and strange, 

Something that draws me toward support beside— 
A hundred nameless heraldries of change 
Forewarn me cf a chance that may betide. 

I watch to meet an eye I have not met; 

I hearken for a voice I have not heard ; 

I tremble toward a touch that hath not yet 
The dreaming blood’s expectant pulses stirred. 

Sometimes a look will startle, or a tone; 

A touch sometimes half seem to shake my heart ; 
A moment then alone is more alone, 

And fates were sweet together, not apart. 

Yet well content with blessed discontent, 

I dream my dream, nor care to waken soon ; 

The dream bides fair, though fairer far be meant, 
Let the white dawn delay the golden noon. 

So watch, my heart, and let me dream my dream ; 

Watch, and awake me when the time shall come ; 
Perhaps our prince is nearer than we deem, 

But greet him thou—my dream may make me dumb. 


6 


PILGRIMAGE . 


PILGRIMAGE. 

Pilgrim I am, and make my way alone ; 

Sometimes I pitch my tent, when not for rest; 
Then, as I sit and muse, there cometh one, 

My heart’s unbidden, yet most welcome guest: 

I know her nigh by neither word nor sign, 

Only a sweeter light within the rich sunshine. 

Or, if it be the saintly close of day, 

And the day’s so beguiled march be o’er, 

Then by a starrier clearness in the ray 

Of love’s clear star, from that deep sunset shore, 
I know my angel is within my tent, 

And her gold-shadowing spirit o’er my spirit leant. 


Or, if at midnight, while I lie asleep, 

A secret glory down the moonbeam roll; 

Or some serene transfiguration creep 

Over the clustering stars that crowd the pole, 


PILGRIMAGE . 


7 


Tingeing my dreams, then waking me to dreams, 

I know that these are her annunciation-gleams. 

Fresher than morning, when the morning breaks, 
Breaks from my East the morning meant for me ; 
East is to me the way my angel takes 

To reach my tent, whate’er that way may be; 

To her my tent-door opens self-withdrawn, 

And to the bridegroom sun swing wide the gates of 
dawn. 

So noonday, evening, midnight, morning, I 
Lonely am not, although I dwell alone; 

But my blind-poet heart doth prophesy, 

Dreaming a dream and vision of her own— 

One tent, not far, by Elim’s springs and palms, 

And two that, side by side, sit singing pilgrim 
psalms. 


3 


‘HOW BEAUTIFUL!' 


* HOW BEAUTIFUL! * 

* How beautiful! ’ she said — not with her voice 
Speaking, but only with her lustrous eyes; 

Something she then beheld made her rejoice 
With joy unspeakable in glad surprise. 

What was it she, with eyes touched clearer, saw 
To flood her being so with sudden bliss? 

We stood and watched her, fixed in breathless awe— 
It was a dawning of that world on this ! 

Death had stolen nigh and softly drawn aside, 

One raptured moment, for our darling child, 

The veil of sense which hangs between to hide 
The state and kingdom of the undefiled. 

A vision of the glory unbeheld 

Broke on that bright young spirit purified; 

That vision and that glory words excelled, 

But, with her eyes, ‘ How beautiful! ’ she cried. 



I 


c 






























































THE POET'S MINE. 


9 


THE POET’S MINE. 

There is a power or passion of the spirit, 

Oh ! wrought not, laid not, by the spirit’s will, 

But coming, going, as the fit may wear it, 

Or he, the viewless conjurer, compel, 

That feigns, translates, transmutes whatever fill 
Earth, ocean, air, the substance of the mind, 

Into bright forms and essences, that still 
Flit with its shifting phase, return refined 
To more pure modes of grace more gloriously 
combined. 

These pass into the spirit; there they grow 
Into a clearer beauty ; thus they blend 
With her own being ; an empyreal glow, 

And they are one—yet not the same ; these lend 
Their life, and the blithe spirit hastes to spend 
An effluence of her quality divine 

Which makes them co-immortal: without end 
This passes with the poet, till a mine 
Of jewels purest-wrought doth in his spirit shine ! 


10 


SALVE/ SALVETE! 


SALVE! SAL VETE! 

0 living voice ! O heart of flame and tears ! 

O forehead flint against embattled wrong! 

O winged feet, but never winged with fears! 

To onset swift and for endurance strong! 

We praise thee, knight, and her with thee we praise 
Who all these years has cheered thee to the strife; 
God give you yet together length of days 
To reap in full the travail of your life! 










GOOD CHEER . 


II 


GOOD CHEER. 

The little maid spoke arch and bright; 

There’s one, quoth she, of Christ’s commands 
To me indeed a burden light— 

“ Be of good cheer ,’ 5 the statute stands. 

She smiled into her father’s face; 

I kissed her for her bonny smile ; 

I tried to give her grace for grace 
Of gladness, but I sighed the while— 

Sighed, for I thought, What can she know, 

Dear little heart, of things to be ? 

Who gladdens but as blossoms blow, 

Or warble birds, unconsciously 0 

“ Be of good cheer ” is not for her ; 

Is of good cheer—describes her state : 

How could she, if she would, demur, 

Who never was disconsolate ? 


12 


GOOD CHEER. 


God bless thee, bless thee, darling child ! 

The years will teach thee fast enough 
How gentle weathers change to wild, 

And soft, smooth ways to hard and rough! 

Joyful thou, not obedient, art ; 

The bidding finds thee forth on wing, 
Obeying but thine own free heart, 

And that blithe blood of life’s young spring 

Bright-hearted welcomer of fate, 

Not always wilt thou thus prevail; 

Also to thee, or soon or late, 

Those vital springs of joy will fail. 

Then of good cheer to be, when all 
Within, without, is dark of cheer, 

Yet the same voice, the still, the small, 

In the same whisper at thine ear, 

“ Be of good cheer,” saith, calm and mild, 

But calm and strong to be obeyed— 

That Christ may crown thee thus, my child, 

I have this silent moment prayedo 


JOHN'S POEM ,; 


13 


JOHN’S POEM. 

I met him in the Pitti Palace, changed 
From the fair boy that I had known at school, 

And loved, a score of years before—man-grown, 

A full bass voice from ’twixt his bearded lips, 

And a wife leaning on his yielded arm. 

Slow sauntering to and fro, from this to that, 
And back to reperuse the artist’s thought 
In a new light, or with some deeper guess 
More deeply seen, they lingered, and I watched 
And made him out. John’s old-time look— 

The gesture of the hand, the mobile brow, 

The smile, the mien, the air—all, all was his, 

The same, the same, my friend. I went toward him 
To call his name and claim him; but his eye 
Met mine with a regard so alien-wise, 

And seemed to challenge my intent with such 

A courteous hospitality of doubt 

That I was dashed to disbelieve my guess. 


14 


JOHN'S POEM ,i 


“Pardon,” I said, “but something that I saw, 
Or fancied, in your face and port, misled 
My eyes to find in you an old-time friend— 

And still, sir, you are still so strangely like—” 

We looked at one another eye to eye, 

Till suddenly our souls swam to our eyes, 

And “John!” and “Walter!” made us boys and 
friends. 

One evening after, at their inn, I sat 
Till late to talk with John of the old days, 

His wife a silent partner of our talk 
And waiting for our mutual tales to reach 
The time when she knew John—it seemed half 
strange 

To her that any one had known her John 
Before she knew him—but her silent art 
In listening lent its secret charm to make 
Our reminiscences more sweet to both, 

And lure us farther on. At last John said : 

“ There, Mary, you remember, we first met.” 

And Mary smiled with such a woman’s grace 
Of gladness to be blended in John’s thought 


JOHN'S POEM. 


15 


With scenes so dear to him, that I conceived 
A wish, too sudden for the second mind 
That hastened after with its late reproof, 

To know their lovers’ story—how they met 
And loved, and what the fortunes of their love. 
I said: 


“ If I could hear how you two met, 
And mastered fate, and out of twain were one, 
Perhaps, perhaps, I know not, it might yield 
Solution of a riddle of my life 
Which baffles me.” 


Misgiving made me bold, 

And I went on : 


“ So, frankly, Madam, here 
In your own presence, for my loyal pledge 
Of being no curious prier only, I, 

By leave assumed from you as not saying nay, 

Beg to be told what other may be told 
How John found you and won a noble wife. 

“Now, John, the whole, the crescent, wax and 


wane, 


16 


JOHN'S POEM. 


Eclipses, occultations, all, to the full moon, 

And long, long light, and cloudless sky, of love 
In wedlock.” 


John and Mary smiled, I saw, 

But whether yes or no, I did not guess, 
Shutting my eyes to dream what I should hear. 

And John : 


“ Well, Mary, shall I tell him all— 
How frankly you surrendered first to me ; 

And how your heart misgave you afterward, 

To make you doubt yourself and doubt the truth 
Of the most true conclusion of your life ? 

Ah, Mary, you, unconscious four-o’-clock, 

Folded yourself demurely from my love, 

And played at death to me, deceiving not 
Your lover, who was wiser, but yourself. 

I never gave you up through that long lapse, 

Long to the doubt and fear that made my love 

Delicious with a sad solicitude 

Of hope, though brief as one swift week of June. 

It was not all at unawares to me 




JOHN'S POEM. 1 7 

When you shut up your bloom and ceased to 
breathe 

Your heart of sweetness out in sacrifice 
To make me rich—a warning went before. 
Forewarned, I watched and waited for the life 
Of love within my folded flower to rise 
And fling her petals open fair again. 

Once wooed, twice won, I wedded you my wife.” 

“ A poem, or a parable ? ” I asked. 

“ Perhaps some echo out of days so sweet, 

Or sad—and sad, yet not unsweet ”—he said, 

“ Still lingers in my heart to tune my speech 
In speaking of them. They were very sweet, 

A poem and a parable to me. 

“ I never told you, Mary, but true love 
Even made your John a rhymer for that once 
In all his life—’twas with no wish or will 
Of mine, and therefore with no blame to me. 

A rhythm in nature, then full pressed with June, 
And music in the motion of my blood 
Turned all my thoughts of you perforce to song. 


2 


i8 


JOHN'S POEM. 


My song was very brave and gay at first 
And thankful ; not the birds rejoice in choir 
Over the springing grass and bursting flowers, 
More than the soul of song within me born 
Caroled for awe and gladness over you. 

But a strong wind bore down the flying jet 
Of music from the fountain of my heart, 

And bent it prone to pathos ; then again 
It soared and triumphed, for that wind went down. 

“ But, parable or poem, here it is 

MY FLOWER. 

I. 

My God hath made a flower to blow 
For me, for me alone ; 

There is no other heart can know, 

No other but my own, 

The sweetness of this human flower, 

That blooms for me alone. 

She blossoms when she wills, my flower, 

But always wills to me ; 

The rest that came to find her bower, 

They came, but did not see 

The flower, that would not bloom for them 
But always wills to me. 


JOHN'S POEM. 


19 


She waited twenty springs in leaf, 
Distilling sun and shower, 

Her maiden-April joy and grief, 

To sweetness every hour— 

Such change to sweetness never yet 
Did suffer sun and shower. 

But when God drew my feet to where 
She folded up her heart 

And twenty years of sweetness there, 

The leaf began to part 

And show the flower, that never now, 
Shall never fold her heart. 

I cannot tell why this is so; 

It seems an utter grace ; 

There is no cause in me, I know, 

No power of worthiness; 

But I remember once before 
An equal utter grace. 

Does any doubt discomfort me ? 

Is it not perfect bliss ? 

Surely I know my dream will be 
More and more rich than this. 

Strange, that the foolish heart should fear 
Too sudden-perfect bliss ! 


20 


JOHN'S POEM. 


My flower’s breath grows sweet and faint, 
Like the lark’s voice when far ; 

But the lark feels the earth’s constraint, 
He does not cross the bar— 

The lark comes back—I cannot think 
My flower will faint too far. 

II. 

She was not mistress of her will; 

“ My time of bud and leaf, 

My folded bloom, so rich and still, 

Alas ! ’twas all too brief,” 

My flower repined, in wish and dream 
Relapsing into leaf. 

And so she swooned away from me, 

One syncope of bloom, 

And that rose heart ceased suddenly 
Its pulses of perfume ; 

The others called it death, but I, 

Only suspense of bloom. 

She swooned of her own sweetness then ; 

The fragrance she exhaled 
Became the breath she breathed again, 
’Twas so her being failed: 

It was not life for her, but me, 

The fragrance she exhaled. 


JOHN'S POEM. 


21 


But in a trance of love and hope, 

Long hope, begot of love, 

Long love, hope-nurtured, like a cope 
Of prophet’s warmth, above 

That hoarding heart of sweet, I watched 
The second bloom of love. 

The blithe young year was flush with June ; 

No flower withheld its gift; 

A hplocaust of incense boon 
The priestess tribes uplift; 

Amid this wide oblation how 
Shall she withhold her gift ? 

She yields, she blooms—the blossomed bowers, 
Sweet with self-sacrifice, 

The sister-lore of censer flowers 
Prevailed to make her wise ; 

My flower had learned that flowers are sweet 
For sweet self-sacrifice ! 

And now her frank and open bloom, 

Wide to the air and sun, 

Feels with each waft of lost perfume 
New strength for sweetness won : 

Sweet and not faint her breath has grown, 
Since wide to air and sun. 


22 


JOHN'S POEM. 


There grew a fine vibration in John’s voice, 

The pathos of past gladness, as he read. 

“Words, Walter, words—a riddle, if you will ; 
Take them and spell them out—I make them yours. 
Sitting by Mary and remembering all, 

Dear friend, I trust for you some good like mine.” 

< 


THE WIFE'S VIGIL. 


2 3 


THE WIFE’S VIGIL. 

The clock was noiseless as the creep of time ; 
Only the soft throb of the pendulum, 

But felt, not heard, and like the pulsing blood. 

The slow, persistent dial hands paced round 
The dull same sentry-beat about the hours, 

And stood, or seemed to stand, at two—blank two— 
The dead-point of the circling night. A lamp 
Burned dim, with a low vigil flame, and lit 
The room in steadfast shadow, where one waked 
To watch another’s sleep. The husband slept, 

And the wife waked ; and they two were alone. 

The sick man’s bosom scarcely heaved with 
breath, 

And she scarce breathed to see him scarcely breathe. 
He must not wake, or he will wake to die ; 

But if he sleep, then he may sleep to live. 

O Night, dear Night, kind luller of all sounds, 


24 


THE WIFE'S VIGIL. 


Slow Night, still Night, nurse him with dark and 
calm! 

He shall not hear me breathe, nor hear my heart 
Beat, though it beat nothing but love for him. 

Hush! Hark ! A footstep ! for I heard it well. 
He did not hear it; and it falls again. 

Another ! And another ! If he wake ! 

He shall not wake. Those cat-like footsteps still! 
But it is well, if he must rob the house, 

He walks so softly. Oh, poor man—bad man ! 

Now, angels, weave your charms to shield his sleep 1 
O God, thou givest thy beloved sleep ! 

O my beloved, God’s beloved, sleep ! 

Outside with patient cunning he had plied, 

The prowler, his long purpose in the dark 
Without a sound, and wrought it, entering in. 

He spied the light, and the light drew him on. 

A moment on the border of the dark, 

The spirit of the darkness, hovering, 

There in the centre of her sphere of light, 

The spirit of the light, he saw her sit— 

The woman, beautiful, and pure, and pale— 


THE WIFE'S VIGIL. 2 5 

With shut eyes, rapt in prayer, and calm, and 
strong. 

A power from the vision fell on him. 

He had not guessed in his dark heart how much 
Good overmatches evil, in its strength 
To watch, and wait, and work, and overcome. 

He in his doubt and pause, she raised her eyes 
And saw all in an instant. Instantly, 

With simultaneous thought and act, she rose— 

A finger on her lips to make him dumb— 

And turned, and from their secret drawer took 
The keys to all the treasures of the house ; 

Then all as if he were her servant come 
In answer to her call to do her wish— 

And he became her servant in the sign— 

Moved like a moving statue silently, 

To meet the wondering robber where he stood. 

The straight regard of those clear, steadfast eyes, 
Bent on him without fear, or horror, or doubt, 
Wrought a confusion in his brain and sense, 

And quelled his evil boldness in the man. 

She did not fear, but he was sore afraid. 

She looked no horror of him, but he conceived 


2 6 


THE WIFE'S VIGIL. 


A horror of his own self, and of his deed. 

She dwelt secure in purpose and result; 

But he was baffled in perplexity. 

Good made her light, and evil darkened him. 

She held the keys forth, pointing with mute sign 
To him that lay so still in sleep or death. 

The robber saw and understood, and took 
Involuntary purpose suddenly. 

He shook his head in silence for his sign, 

And, stepping velvet, vanished as he came. 

So the light purged him off into the dark. 
Perhaps a spark of light abode in him 
That after leavened his nature into light. 


CON SO LA TION. 


2 7 


CONSOLATION. 

I dreamed last night of our darling boy, 

He shouted aloud for glee ; 

O love, but it filled my heart with joy 
His ruddy health to see ! 

And I said, My love, why, here is our son, 

He is not dead, he is here ; 

See him frisk and run in his frolic and fun, 
And hark to his voice, how clear! 

It was all but an evil dream, my love, 

Thank God, it is over and past! 

Our bending and watching his bed above 
So long, and so vainly at last. 

What a strange, foolish dream it was, my dear, 
But how real and how sad it seemed! 

We did not guess, in our grief and our fear, 
We could not guess, that we dreamed. 


28 


CONSOLATION. 


We thought it was surely so, that he 
Lay wearily waiting to die ; 

We thought it was surely so, that we 
Sat muffling our mutual cry. 

I laughed in my dream : Love, let us be wise, 

Lo, how little this looks like death ! 

I laughed, but the tears made a mist in my eyes. 
And I breathed as if fearful of breath. 

For the spell of that past which I dreamed was 
dream— 

It abode, and it still would abide ; 

Insomuch that I yet could not utterly deem 
But somehow ’twas true he had died. 

And still, and still, the long, drear days, 

And the longer nights between, 

Wherein we twain went those death-shade ways, 
They still seemed indeed to have been. 

I could not forget his sad, dull look, 

The look of precocious pain, 

That the sweet little face not once forsook, 

Not once let it brighten again ! 


CONSOLA TION. 


29 


And the cry that he cried—you remember his cry, 
One intense inarticulate plea, 

Piercing keen from his heart to that Heart in the 
sky: 

Lord Jesus, have mercy on me! 

I heard it again, pang-sped arrow of sound, 

It clove to the quick of my sleep ; 

I awoke, and awake, alas, love, I found 
There was bitter occasion to weep. 

For our boy was not there, I but dreamed of our boy, 
Our beautiful Arthur and brave ; 

The vision had vanished, that vision of joy, 

And Arthur remained in his grave. 

In his grave, that bright being ! Nay, beloved, not so, 
That brightness, that sweetness, survive ; 

They never could bury such sunshine, I know ; 
Little Arthur, be sure, is alive. 

Believing, beloved, is blessed content ; 

We shall weep, but our tears will be peace ; 

To betoken what is, that vision was sent, 

What is, and what never shall cease ! 


30 


A PICTURE OF MEMORY. 


A PICTURE OF MEMORY. 

It may be that in after time, 

As hath been in the time before, 

These pleasant thoughts that fall to rhyme 
Will leave me lone forevermore. 

I seem to see a radiant hearth, 

And looks of trust, and happy eyes ; 

I catch the sound of children’s mirth, 
Laughter and words and quick replies. 

The father sits, with calm content, 

The sober centre of the scene, 

Reading with visage downward bent, 

Or musing with abstracted mien. 

Beside him, seeking hidden joy, 

His favorite books around him spread, 

A frank, clear-eyed, and serious boy 
Converses with the wiser dead. 


A PICTURE OF MEMORY. 


31 


The daughters share the mother’s mind, 
Wearing a brow of household care ; 

While untouched youth from eyelids kind 
Looks out upon a world all fair. 

They win you with the woman’s grace, 

Most quiet and pervasive power— 

An influence raining from the face, 

The unconscious fragrance of a flower. 

But thou, O high and queenly heart, 

My elder and superior friend, 

Who, filling well the mother’s part, 

Knowest thou hast no nobler end, 

All this fair picture utters thee ; 

The vision and the light are thine, 

And that pure air of sanctity 

Which breathes this spell of peace divine. 

O image near of heaven afar, 

Ideal-perfect dream of home, 

Clear in my reverie as a star, 

And steadfast, whereso’er I roam— 


32 


A PICTURE OF MEMORY. 


Leave me not lone ; I cannot be 
Utterly homeless anywhere, 

While Memory builds this house for me, 
And lights her fires of welcome there. 


A DEDICATION . 


33 


A DEDICATION. 

AFTER SPENSER. 

As when, in isle in ocean far away, 

Faring o’er wave of his world-wandering tide, 
Which forlorn mariner, of winds the play, 

Where its green spot on azure deep doth ride, 
Spies, and misdeems he spies the enchanted side 
Of sweet-souled Spenser’s western fairy world, 
Bright dream ! him landed greets the gentle pride 
Of unknown flower, he tendeth well, the curled 
Wave o’er, that stranger flower, where’er his course 
is hurled : 

So, sister mine, summing the mazy throng 
Of earthly ills, yet heavenward making way, 

In some far year perhaps this simple song 
That hies from heart in wondrous merry play, 

As water welleth to the pleasant day, 

3 


34 


A DEDICATION. 


Will woo thy small regard with downcast air ; 

In other years, as he the flower, so may 
Thou very gently cherish it, and bear 
Its bosomed sweet remembrance whereso’er thou 
fare! 





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THE VALE OF OTTER . 


35 


THE VALE OF OTTER. 

One frolic leap from the farewell caress 
Of mountains joying in so fair a child, 

And Otter, ’scaped through woody wilderness, 
Lapses into a love-lorn valley mild 
Of swaying vines, and river willows wild, 

And many a bloomy grass, and many a flower, 

By whose sweet kiss the dallying wave beguiled 
Still in the prime, the late, the middle hour, 

Lingers through all his banks, a bright continuous 
bower. 

The river cherry, on the swimming brink, 

Sends down his bibulous root to seek the wave ; 
With fellow thirst, the willows drooping drink 
Through darkling roots and branches sunny brave; 
And all between, the long green grasses lave, 
Lapping the current’s coolness ; here and there, 

The miner musk-rat winds his gallery-cave, 

And wantons in the water ; everywhere 
Whatever thrives in moist battens on banquet fare. 


36 


THE VALE OF OTTER. 


So flush and full the convex river runs, 

And seamless green the endless meadow weaves ; 
Ever on either side the valley shuns, 

With flexile sweep, some wooded bastion’s eaves 
Flung from the fortress mountains ; and all leaves 
Of trees that love the water-brink emboss, 

As with boon Nature’s never-garnered sheaves, 
The level valley with their mounded gloss, 

Along the linked curves of Otter’s living fosse. 

The banks are brim with water hazel-brown, 

The vale is brim with meadow living-green, 
Through fluent grass the river wanders down, 

And grass and river make one liquid scene. 

It seems blue Leman changed to emerald sheen, 
With waves of verdure capped with leafy spray, 
Where urgent Rhone has slacked his current keen, 
To heal the gentle wound with long delay, 

By which through all that peace he cleaves his 
warrior way. 


•**rfcV-,v 










NESHOBEE. 


37 


NESHOBEE. 

AFTER SPENSER. 

Neshobee was a little lovely spot 
You may have dreamed some drowsy summer’s 
noon, 

But to have seen hath been above your lot, 

For now, alack-a-day, and much too soon, 

Its charms have passed from underneath the 
moon ! 

Aye me, sweet one, and might thy sooth minstrel 
Acquaint his harp how that the fond raccoon, 

And witty fox, and every brute gentle, 

And every bird and bloom inhabited thy dell! 

Two undulating lines of hill-top green 
Did hide the rising and the setting sun, 

Yet that against the East excelled, I ween, 

And so the prime part of his course was run 
Before the waxing fervors were begun ; 


33 


NESHOBEE. 


And then what time he, ardent eye of day, 

Did nearly look the western woods upon, 

Behind the opposite less steep alway 

He dropped, yet shed o’er half the heaven a milder ray. 

These were, in sooth, an arborous battlement, 

That eke for beauty and for use might be, 
Whereon did grow each tree of good intent 
The careful clime could nurse right ruggedly ; 
The rigid beech, the courtly hickory, 

The maple bleeding sweets, the solemn spruce, 

The impressible bass, the poplar, Quaker he, 

The sceptre-bearing birch, once—now this use, 

O star-eyed Progress ! is an ascertained abuse. 

And more there were, not worthless to be sung, 

But that it would my hasting harp delay 
To tell how fair the mountain ash uphung 
Her silver blossoms, or her berries gay 
Vermilion ; how the vine, with tendril spray, 

And flexible endeavor, twined the grove 
To amity ; so there the summer day 
Fainted for sweetness of one dream of love, 

A sense secure of peace, like broodings of ihe dove ! 


THE CLEAR PEARL. 


39 


THE CLEAR PEARL. 

Each heart is shrouded many-fold from all 
Save her own introspections, and the pure 
All-seeing. Nothing intercepts that sight, 

Watching the innermost deeps ; but clouds of sin, 
The false reflexes of her self-deceit, 

The uncertain shapes of passions, and the arts 
Of Satan have some power to warp and sway 
The heart’s self-judgments ; yet, the wish being 
strong, 

The interior eye can pierce these shroudings, search 
The heart of the heart, and know the last intent. 

Oh, happy they who, searching so, discern, 

In the still depths of spirit, the clear pearl 
Of a true thought to do the will of God ! 


40 


THE ISLAND OF TRANQUILLITY. 


THE ISLAND OF TRANQUILLITY. 

Hither withdrawn from all the world’s disease, 

The dwellers do a gentle life consume, 

And comfort loss with fair philosophies 
Of the other realm, and of the latter doom 
Of such as hide their footsteps in the tomb. 

So many much-loved pathways there have ceased, 
Ceased from observance—though in larger room, 
From all besetments of the flesh released, 

No doubt the unseen steps to godlike space increased! 

Here let us change discourse perpetually 
Of household forms beheld no longer here : 

Father who went, and left small memory, 

But that was holy with a happy tear. 

Mild fell the light of sunset on his bier— 

Buried, we thought, with the beloved head 
To leaven the oppressive soil—and in our ear 
A murmur : “ Dying in the Lord,” it said, 
“Henceforth the dead is blest”—and blessed was 
the dead! 


THE ISLAND OF TRANQUILLITY. 41 

And one that followed, ere the flower had turned 
To any fruit or lost its youthful hue ; 

But not before her prepared spirit had learned 
The careful step that keeps the pathway true, 
Through pastures green, forever wet with dew 
From clouds on Zion’s hill : her breath was sweet 
With airs of heaven, that on her forehead blew. 
From hill to hill of prospect now her feet, 

Like Morning round the world, are walking pure 
and fleet. 

VVe yet perforce contented bide our while, 

Where gentle shores of resignation bound, 

On every side about, our Blessed Isle, 

With long slope sliding toward the gulfs profound 
Of the mid-sea of sorrow moaning round : 

Far off the rude roar of the storm retreats, 

And in our ears sinks to a soothing sound ; 

Lulled in a lovely weather, our calm seats 
Keep their pathetic calm whatever tempest beats. 


42 


THE NORTHERN LIGHTS . 


THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. 

When the sole sun is low, 

And myriad stars watch in the wakeful even, 

Where lights that crystalline glow, 

Suffusing faint and fair the azure slopes of heaven ? 

Is it the icy field 

That masks, at either pole, the fervid sway 
Wherewith the earth is wheeled, 

Flaming, unwasting, in the slant sun’s frory ray ? 

Is it the restless spirit 
That haunts the bosom of the universe, 

In void he doth inherit, 

Kindling the electric flames that thought and being 
nurse ? 

Is it a weird portent, 

Written in lightning on the living wall 
Of the far firmament, 

Pointing some world aghast to fate’s impending fall ? 


THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. 


43 


Is it the flushing flame 
Of some more fine ethereal sphere on fire, 

With radiant hue of shame 
Mantling the conscious heaven above the funeral 
pyre ? 

Is it the vivid beam 

Once fixed in splendor ’twixt the cherubim, 

Its winged Shekinah-gleam 
Lighting the lonely sky with awful sign of Him ? 


44 


THE WOLVES' FEAST. 


THE WOLVES’ FEAST. 

A little maid went tripping through the wood, 
Sunny, and sweet, and gay, in light or shade, 

Most like a gush of laughter, or a song. 

She and the world were young, that morning 
made, 

And they twain played together children-wise. 

The archer sun shot at her shafts of gold, 

And the maid caught them in her net of hair, 

And kept them to be sunshine round her head. 

The fragrant breezes blew into her face 
Out from the laughing heaven, like its own breaths, 
And she received them thence, and gave them back, 
Fragrance for fragrance. Overhead in glee 
The swinging branches clapped their leafy hands 
To cheer her ; and she, pleased with their applause, 
Ran like a spirit. Birds from every bough 
Saluted her their fellow, and her voice 
Rang birdlike back, in gracious mimicry, 


THE WOLVES' FEAST 


45 


Taking and giving welcome ; till at last, 

Tired with her too much gladness, she sat down 
Upon a mossy bank amid the wood, 

And sank in sleep—the sudden, utter lapse 
Of childhood in oblivion. So she lay, 

The basket by her side in which she bore 
His noon’s refreshment to her father, where 
He swung his woodman’s ax against the trees. 

He, by the dial of his appetite, 

Guessing it noon, with one more sturdy blow 
To sound of sudden hearty breath sent home, 

Drove deep the biting edge into the quick 
Heart of the wood, and left it fixed ; then turned 
And glanced along the twinkling path of green 
That led through forest to his cabin ; dwells 
A doubtful moment looking heedfully ; 

Sees nothing that he seeks ; in doubt again, 

Takes the sun’s height with practised eye, and notes 
How fall the shadows, wondering more and more 
To miss the coming of the little feet. 

With slow, suspicious circumspection now, 

The father in him roused to anxious fears, 


4 6 


THE WOLVES' FEAST. 


He moves his steps to meet his child. He comes 
To that cool bank of moss whereon she sat, 

To find—no daughter. There her basket lay, 
Where the sleep-helpless hand had slacked its hold 
Upon it; but the little hand was gone. 

Rapt in fixed fear and horrible suspense, 

He strains his eyes around to seize some hint 
Further of what mishap had fallen on her. 

Nothing—save a chance heap of withered leaves 
Beside, that mocked him with the shape and size 
And seeming of a little child’s fresh grave. 

He stares vacantly at it, and the wind 
Moved it, or did it move from underneath ? 

A gentle undulation heaved the mound 
From head to foot. Then, as the slumberer turned 
Half on one side unconsciously, apart 
Fell the light coverlet of leaves, and forth 
A little aimless hand was flung to view, 

Grasping at nothing for an instant seen, 

Seen and forgotten, in a land of dreams. 

The father gave no pause to wonder ; stooped, 
Snatched up his child as from her grave, and ran, 


THE WOLVES’ FEAST. 


47 


Ran with prone speed and breathlessly, 

And hid his darling in her mother’s arms. 

Then, without stay for question or reply, 

Straight he sped back to that same bank of moss 
Where, adding leaves, he heaped the mound again 
With heed, and brought it to the shape and size 
And seeming of a little child’s fresh grave. 

So done, he chose, amid the massy top 
Of a full-foliaged maple standing nigh, 

A seat where, masked from sight, he might at¬ 
tend 

What sequel, if some sequel, should ensue. 

With long leap, leisurely, a file of wolves, 

As to some goal, drew winding through the wood, 
And paused beside the mound. One seemed to 
guide, 

And the rest heeded. These, in grim array, 

Ranged in a row of expectation sat, 

Gaunt guests, but biding till the feast were served. 
Then he that seemed to guide removed the leaves 
With ceremony—to find his feast was flown. 

He crouched in craven fear at that surprise, 
Piteously moaning ; but a dismal howl 


48 


THE WOLVES 1 FEAST. 


Of grief and of revenge and ravin foiled 
Arising, those fell brethren of the wood 
Set on him all together, tooth and claw, 

And in one moment rent him limb from limb. 


Feasted, but not with food, they went away c 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND . 49 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND. 


“ Long Pond, or, as it is now commonly called, ‘ Runaway Pond,’ was 
formerly situated on the summit of a hill in the towns of Glover and Greens- 
borough, Vt., and was one of the sources of Lamoille River. In June, 1810, an 
attempt was made to open an outlet from it to Barton River on the north, when 
the whole waters of the pond, which was one and a half miles long and half a mile 
wide, tore their way through the quicksand, which was only separated by a thin 
’stratum of clay from the pond, and advanced in a wall from sixty to seventy feet 
high and twenty rods wide, carrying before them mills, houses, barns, fences, 
forests, cattle, horses, and sheep, levelling the hills and filling up the valleys till 
they reached Lake Memphremagog, twenty-seven miles distant, in about six hours 
from the time they left the pond. The inhabitants had just sufficient notice to 
escape with their lives .”—New American Cyclopaedia, vol. xvi., Art. Vermont. 


I. 


My throne is on the mountain, and underneath my 
feet 

The pulses of the fountain of youth eternal 
beat; 

For what Adam’s sons and daughters have sought 
the world around, 

Beneath my own bright waters and without quest 
I found. 


4 


50 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND . 


So no rude river rushes with noise athwart my 
dreams, 

But my spring within me gushes, and I sit above 
the streams ; 

And my ancient heart rejoices, and I feel as young 
as a boy, 

I, that heard when the stars and the voices sang 
together and shouted for joy. 


I am kindred with earth and with ocean, I’m in 
league with the sun and the sky, 

Our couriers are ever in motion—they run, and they 
fall, and they fly ; 

A rivulet runs with a greeting to the restless, im¬ 
perious sea, 

He runs his message repeating in the ear of the 
earth for me. 


I signal the sun in the morning with a waft from my 
bright water-woof, 

It springs upward on pinions of scorning, and soars 
to the sky’s azure roof; 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND. 51 

It meets a cloud-argosy sailing with news from the 
much-seeing main, 

And returns, with instinct unfailing, in a parachute 
fall of rain. 


I have held my changeless station six thousand 
changeful years, 

And each insect generation of men, with their hopes 
and fears, 

Has swarmed into sudden existence, and fretting its 
little day, 

With a hopeless wail for resistance, has been whirled 
in a moment away, 


While I in my prophet-trances have felt them come 
and go 

But as tripping troops of fancies that huddle when 
breezes blow, 

And I ripple in wavelets of laughter, and I hug the 
laughter down, 

The sunshine shimmering after, till I gleam all 
through like a crown. 


52 THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND. 


So I dwell apart from the riot and noise of men’s 
tongues and their deeds, 

At ease in long sabbaths of quiet and the strength 
which tranquillity breeds ; 

And my ancient heart rejoices, and I feel as young 
as a boy, 

I, that heard when the stars and the voices sang 
together and shouted for joy. 

ii. 

But a strange, incredible rumor is brought me now 
and again 

Of some wild, presumptuous humor that has taken 
the children of men. 

Do they deem that they will subdue me to run at 
their bidding and beck ? 

A nameless tremor thrills through me as I think of 
the ruin and wreck 

I will visit on them in the hour when they shatter 
the holy vase 

Where, held in the hand of His power, I have lain in 
the light of His face. 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND. 


53 


Already I hear them approaching, the impious race 
of mankind, 

With stroke after stroke encroaching on my rest with 
purposes blind. 


They are near, and nearer, the vessel of clay that 
encloses me round ; 

I rouse, and I writhe, and I wrestle, I shudder and 
shake at the sound ! 

They have reached it, they smote it, they break it— 
now, now is my moment of wrath ; 

Woe, woe to the mortals that wake it, and that stand 
in my terrible path ! 


I tower on a swell oceanic, I swing my flood-gates 
wide, 

I stand in a stature Titanic, I take one dreadful 
stride— 

Down, down with a crash like the thunder, on, on 
with the hurricane’s roar, 

As his bars had been broken asunder, and ocean 
were shocking the shore. 


54 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND . 


I roll like a torrent Atlantic over hill and valley and 
wood ; 

I will wreak a vengeance gigantic on man and his 
puny brood. 

Oh! ’tis joy to poise me impending one instant be¬ 
fore I fall, 

With a fury that mocks his defending, on his homes 
and his hopes and his all. 


How this forest bends beneath me ! I will pluck it 
from the earth, 

And its garland boughs shall wreathe me for the 
revel of my mirth. 

I am glad and mad with this rattle and roar of my 
headlong tide ; 

I will scoop up their sheep and their cattle, and 
give them a cataract ride. 


Aha! I see they have captured my kinsman, and 
set him in thrall, 

But he hearkens and hears me enraptured, as I rush 
to his rescue and call, 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND . 55 


And call aloud, with a clashing of the spears of my 
warrior waves, 

On-pouring, deep-roaring, high-dashing, booming 
doom in all ears but the slave’s. 


So forward with flock, herd, and dwelling, with mill 
and harvest and wood, 

All atilt on the crests of my swelling, and tossed on 
the horns of my flood, 

Till I come where the famished abysses wait agape 
with their horrible jaws, 

And welcomed with kisses and hisses, I give them a 
glut for their maws. 


Now light like a cavalcade springing to the front of 
the battle with speed, 

Each rider his bridle-rein flinging on the thunder- 
clad neck of his steed,— 

But I see my vanguard is nearing a headland, massy 
and steep, 

And I choose to wheel careering with a wide and 
winding sweep. 


56 the song of runaway pond . 


And here a sentinel mountain challenges me with a 
frown, 

But I curl my crest like a fountain and I dash the 
sentinel down, 

And over the slope of his shoulder, and into the sub¬ 
ject plain, 

With a billowy bound the bolder, I spring to my 
path again. 


Surely better than listless contentment to be lulled 
in the lap of my hill, 

Is this rush of resistless resentment, this march of 
omnipotent will. 

I had dreamed not the power, the glory, of a tumult 
of motion and noise, 

This race is the pride of my story, this roar is the 
crown of my joys. 


But I see the gleam of the waters on Memphrema- 
gog’s brow ; 

I have emptied my vial of slaughters, I am ready for 
peace again now: 


THE SONG OF RUNAWAY POND. 57 

I am coming, my sister, behold me,—let me sink 
upon your breast, 

Once open your arms to enfold me, and I shall not 
break your rest. 


58 


AUGURIES. 


AUGURIES. 

New Year’s Morn, 1877. 

Lo, mingling with the morning’s pleasant glory 
In the fresh East there hangs an alien light— 

A dull red gleam of token sad and gory, 

Portending war and war’s wide-wasting blight! 
This New Year’s dawn it draws the wistful sight 
Of half the expectant nations ; there it glows 

Round from the southward toward the Arctic 
night, 

Glooming the Mediterranean, while it throws 
Fiercely a sullen flame o’er Scandinavian snows. 


It spans mid-Europe, and the continent 
Glimmers beneath the vast sepulchral glare ; 
The Saracen is lighted in his tent, 

And sees his shadow at his evening prayer ; 
Grimly it spreads to where the Russian bear 


AUGURIES,. 


59 


Couches in snows the secret of his power ; 

The British lion from his island lair 
Winks and returns the menace with a glower, 

And the French eagle bides the portents of the hour. 

By thousand leagues of ocean poured between, 

God guards thee safe, my country, from the bale ; 
No brand of conflagration kindling keen, 

Borne on the breast of any westward gale, 

Can reach thee, fenced within thy watery pale ; 
Let Europe all flame unto flagrant skies 

That whelm her subject lands with fiery hail, 

Here thou mayst sit lifting untroubled eyes 

Up to a heaven o’er which pure light of promise lies. 

But what if fire within thy heart be pent ! 

What if, my country, though thy heaven be fair, 
Volcano rouse, and, forcing hideous vent 
Through thy torn bosom to the upper air, 

In self-engendered flames enwrap thee there ! 4 
That were worse ruin : that thy God forefend ! 

Quench the quick spirit of fire within thee ! Spare 
Lava at least fed from thyself, to send 
Redoubling flood on flood to waste thee without end ! 


6o 


THE PREPARATION. 


THE PREPARATION. 

“ The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, 
and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made 
straight and the rough places plain : and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” 
—Old Testament. 

As, when a sovereign of the Orient moves 
With stately pomp of progress through his land, 

And heralds cry before him, where he goes : 

“Cast up a highway for the advancing king!’’ 

The obsequious provinces, with eager speed, 

Throng to the pageant’s van from every side, 

Pluck up the rooted forests from their seats, 

Bind torrent streams with bridges, as with chains. 
Lift up the valleys and bow down the hills, 

To smooth a broad access to that array; 

So^chosen Hebrew, Greek cosmopolite, 

And subjugating Roman joined their part 
With other names besides forgotten now, 

Or less renowned—Egyptian, Canaanite, 

Assyrian, Median, Persian—to prepare 


THE PREPARATION. 


61 

From age to age a wide historic way, 

Measuring full many a desert tract of time, 
Spanning full many a secular abyss— 

Blight, famine, plague, earthquake, and war, and. 
waste— 

Before the coming of the King of kings. 


62 


OUR CHRISTMAS MORN. 


OUR CHRISTMAS MORN. 

With joy too deep for mirth, for sensual feast, 
And echoing laughter—joy akin to tears, 

And kindly to kind deeds, and to such thought 
As turns to love, and to such love as turns 
To prayer, and is returned in love again 
Forever—so we hail our Christmas morn ! 

O day, sweet, if for but the gracious guile 
We force on fancy to believe it once 
Beheld the birth of Christ, how should we miss 
The meaning of the gospel of thy dawn, 

To let it usher in a time for us 
Of only this world’s gladness! Not for this 
Was that child born, in after years the Man 
Of sorrows, and the Intimate of grief— 

To fill void mouths the more with vulgar cheer, 

And flood waste hearts with wassail for a day : 

They teach us Christmas lore who know not Christ! 


OUR CHRISTMAS MORN. 63 

O Christ! Teach us thyself how we shall best 
Honor thy birthday, year by year, when we 
Are born ourselves therein anew to lives 
Like thine, of exile even, or sacrifice, 

Of toils and tears, to save the souls of men ! 


64 


THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 


THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 

Last night at twelve, amid the knee-deep snows, 
A child of Time accepted his repose,— 

The eighteen hundred fifty-sixth of grace, 

With sudden chance, fell forward on his face. 

Solemn and slow the winter sun had gone, 
Sailing full early for the port of dawn ; 

Across broad zones of the ethereal sea, 

With even rate he voyaged far and free, 

While the cone-shadow of the earth swept round 
The other half of heaven’s embracing bound— 

A weird and mystic dial-hand to mark, 

From orb to orb, along a shuddering arc, 

Measured to music of the sphery chime, 

The noiseless process of eternal time. 

I walked in doubt and dread—as if the weight 
Of all the impending heaven upon me sate : 


THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 65 


The crisp snow creaked, my breath pushed stiffly 
out, 

And keen frost-sparkles merrily glanced about; 

The clear cold stars reached down a frory ray, 

Like a fine icicle accrete of spray, 

That pricked my blood with many a light attack 
Of Lilliput lances in my front and back. 

For every several nerve alive to feel, 

The eager season had some shrewd appeal. 

And so the fields I gained, and there I found 
The fresh dry snow laid by that querulous sound. 
And all grew still as death. Within my breast 
Hushing the noisy heart-beat on I pressed. 

The punctual shadow to the summit drew ; 
Twelve strokes of lighter silence fell like dew, 
Audible to the spirit, and, behold, 

The vision of the Dead Year was unrolled. 
Full-length he leaned aslant the slumbering 
snow, 

Which clad all things in Chinese weeds of woe, 
Easing his fall—that not a breath might mar 
The listening awe that yearned from snow to star. 

5 


66 


THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. 


But over him doth a fair spirit smile, 

As fain all grief with gladness to beguile ; 

A torch he bears to light the world anew— 

O blithe Young Year, but keep thy promise true! 


A NEW YEAR'S TRIFLE . 


67 


A NEW YEAR’S TRIFLE. 

What a dreary, sad old father 
Old Father Time must be, 

No voices round his hearth-stone, 
No children on his knee ! 

The little infant seconds 
And minutes cannot stay, 

They breathe their breath of being, 
And go the breathless way. 

The hours and days grow older, 
But have a hastening date, 

They die before their childhood, 
And choose a changeless state. 

The weeks and months a little 
Weep for their kindred dead, 
Then yield themselves to stillness, 
And droop the dying head. 


68 


A NEW YEAR'S TRIFLE . 


A very sad old father 

Old Father Time must be, 

No voices round his hearth-stone 
No children on his knee ! 


DEDICATED. 


69 


DEDICATED. 

Book of page inviolate, 

Thee I seal and consecrate ; 
Sacred thou henceforward art 
Unto scriptures of the heart. 

Fair and innocent thy look, 
Leaves unwritten, little book ; 
Written all thy leaves, be thou 
Innocently fair as now! 

Innocently fair, but then 
Stored and storied from the pen, 
Vow of friendship, counsel sage, 
Subtle spell on every page. 

Each white leaf upturn its face 
With a meek, imploring grace, 
Pray who writes bestow good care 
Not to fleck what now is fair. 


70 


DEDICATED. 


Little book, I charge thee, be 
Cheer to her that chose out thee ; 
Comfort her with hand and token, 
Signature of faith unbroken. 

Hearken, book, a secret hear, 

Low, bend low, thy hoarding ear, 
Close, keep close, what thee I tell, 
Or ensure thou use it well! 

Whose thou art, her breast within, 
Hides a book to thee a twin ; 

Many a page is virgin still, 

She may write there what she will. 

Tell no other, but tell her ; 

Haste to tell, and not defer; 

Tell her, bid her, beg, conjure,— 
Make those living scriptures pure ! 

Thou wilt perish by and by, 

Little book, with things that die ; 
That, with things that live forever, 
Will abide, to perish never,— 


DEDICA7ED. 


7 1 


Aye, with all its scriptures clear, 
Rescued from the burning sphere, 
Will, with her that owns it, go 
Endless ways in weal or woe. 

Faithful monitor be thou ; 

Sometimes, when she bends her brow 
Over thee to con the signs, 

Show her this between the lines. 


72 


IN AN ALBUM, 


IN AN ALBUM. 

As flower new-born might spring to light 
Amid sweet peers of earlier prime, 

Yet write not on its frail leaves bright 
Romancing of its father clime ; 

As star might waken in the heaven 
Where sister stars have waked for aye, 

And, watching in the wakeful even, 

Reveal not whence she brought her ray: 

So, gentle lady, so this trace— 

Of hand that may trail nevermore 
Its simple tracery, to chase, 

One time perhaps your memory o’er, 

Forms that from long, long flitted days, 

When thought was young and love was deep, 
Come dimmest, sweetest through the maze 
And melt into the heaven you weep— 


IN AN ALBUM. 


73 


So, haply, so this still sad sign 
Yet to your casting thought shall give 
No image of the strange face mine 
To make my poor remembrance live! 


74 


HOW WE CAME TOGETHER . 


HOW WE CAME TOGETHER. 

Thorwaldsen’s Lion, gray and grim, 
Rock in his rocky lair, 

On who would rend his lily from him, 
Glowered out with dying glare. 

I mused awhile the sculptured stone, 
My pilgrim staff in hand , 

Then turned to hold my way alone, 

And lone, from land to land. 

But God had other hap in store : 

Even as I turned I met 

A manly eye ne’er seen before— 

I seem to see it yet! 

Vanish the changeful years between, 
Like morning-smitten rack ; 

As, morning-like, that crescent scene 
Comes dawning swiftly back. 


HOW WE CAME TOGETHER ,. 


7 5 


Again, above, that mellow noon 
And soft Swiss heaven doth yearn; 

Frowns still on us in pilgrim shoon 
The Lion of Lucerne. 

Once more each other’s hands we take, 

The pass-words fly betwixt; 

Though slack the speed that speech may make, 
When heart with heart is mixed. 

I see the green Swiss lake asleep 
With Righi in her dream ; 

We cross the lake, we climb the steep 
To watch the world agleam. 

The paths are many up the slope, 

And many of the mind ; 

We catch the flying clue of hope, 

And wander where they wind. 

The paths are fresh, the pastures green, 

In walk or talk traversed ; 

The Alpland meadow’s grassy sheen 
With many a streamlet nursed, 


76 


HOW WE CAME TOGETHER. 


And the fair meadows of the soul 
Forever fresh with streams 

From the long heights of youth that roll, 
The Righi-Culm of dreams. 

We speak of summits hard to gain, 

And, gained, still hard to keep ; 

Of pleasure bought with glorious pain, 
Of tears ’twas heaven to weep ; 

And of a blessed Heavenly Friend 
Who, struggling with us still, 

Would break the blows else like to bend 
The lonely human will; 

Or with some sudden vital touch, 

At pinch of sorest need, 

Would lift our little strength to much, 
And energize our deed. 

Our talk flows on, through strain or rest, 
As up the steep we go ; 

Each untried track of thought seems best 
In hope’s prelusive glow. 


HOW WE CAME TOGETHER. 


77 


We loiter while the sun makes haste, 

But we shall yet sit down 
To watch the gleams of sunset chased 
From mountain crown to crown. 

Too long, too late—the splendor went 
Or e’er we reached the goal; 

But a splendor had dawned that will never be spent 
That day on either soul! 


DESIDERIUM. 


78 


DE SIDERIUM. 

The shattered water plashes down the ledge ; 

The long ledge slants and bends between its 
walls, 

And shoots the current over many an edge 
Of shelvy rock, in thin and foamy falls,— 

With the same streaming light and numerous 
sound, 

As when his musing way he duly hither wound. 

Up by this path along the streamlet’s brink, 

Into the cool ravine his footsteps wore ; 

That was in other days—I bow and think 
In sadness of the wealthy days of yore, 

The fair far days, so wholly gone away, 

When love, and hope, and youth before us boundless 
lay. 

He was a kind of genius of the glen, 

The soul of sunshine in its heart of gloom ; 











DESIDERIUM. 


79 


Nature’s great mansion, wide to other men, 

Here for the gentlest guest reserved a room, 
Where she, in secret from the general throng, 
Welcomed him fleeing oft and cheered him lingering 
long. 

But hospitable Nature seeks him now 

Through her wide halls or cloistered cells in vain ; 
The wistful face, the early wrinkled brow, 

The peace that touched and purified the pain, 

The slender form, dilate with noble thought, 

The woman’s welcoming smile for all fair things he 
brought; 

The light, quick step, elastic but not strong, 

Alert with springing spirit and tempered nerve— 
Type of the heart direct that sped along 
Swiftly where duty led, and did not swerve 
For count of odds, or dread of earthly loss, 

Buoyed with the costliest strength to bear the heavi¬ 
est cross ; 

These tokens of that gracious presence here, 

O Nature, you and I together mourn ; 


8o 


DESIDERIUM. 


But you and I, O Nature, have our cheer 

Concerning him that helps our loss be borne— 
You mould his dust to keepsake grass and flower, 
What warmed his dust moulds me to forms of finer 


power. 


A REMEMBERED TEACHER . 


8l 


A REMEMBERED TEACHER. 

I see him now, importunate, eager, bold 
To push for truth, as most to push for gold ; 

Young then, with youth’s fine scorn of consequence 
He weighed no whither, so he knew his whence— 
Asked only, but asked hard, Is it a fact ? 

That point well sure, deemed then he nothing lacked; 
Truth was from God, she could not lead astray ; 
Fearlessly glad he walked in Truth’s highway. 

Who joined him there, had fellow stout to cheer ; 
Who crossed, met foe behooved his weal to fear; 

His quick, keen, urgent, sinewy, certain thrust 
Those knights well knew who felt it in the joust. 

Ideal-Christian teacher, master, man, 

Severely sweet, a gracious Puritan, 

Beyond my praise to-day, beyond their blame, 

He spurs me yet with his remembered name ! 

6 


82 


LIFE OF HIS LIFE. 


LIFE OF HIS LIFE. 

No barren mere mechanic art 

The teacher’s, his no casual touch 

Of mind to mind, that may impart 
A sum of knowledge, such or such. 

Far other worth, and other cost, 

His high vicarious task implies ; 

He must himself be sunk and lost 
To make his fellow strong and wise. 

Dissolved, diffused, and ambient, 

Like an involving atmosphere, 

An influence and an element 
To work a work and not appear, 

The teacher born from God to teach, 
About his pupils, hid from sight, 

Broods, and invests them, moulding each 
With plastic pressure day and night. 























LIFE OF HIS LIFE. 


83 


A living and life-giving force, 

Oft present most when most unguessed, 
A hidden or unheeded source 

Supplied to many a distant breast, 

Through cunning conduits flowing power, 
Fresh power to think, to will, to do, 
And meet the challenge of the hour, 
Whatever that may summon to— 

But signs still fail and leave untold 
What the true teacher is to us, 

The transformation manifold 
He undergoes, becoming thus 

A spur forever in the side, 

A mettle mingled with the blood, 

And in the ear, to cheer or chide, 

A haunting voice well understood; 

A pang of passionate desire 

To end the path and gain the goal, 

A seed of quick and quenchless fire, 

A touch of torment to the soul— 


8 4 


LIFE OF HIS LIFE. 


Torment she loves, and would not miss, 
The anguish of impossible aims, 

Ennobling thirst for nobler bliss 

That burns her with immortal flames. 

Such forms of force the teacher is, 

The teacher by all instinct such; 

A god-like, awful office his, 

The gift of the vivific touch. 

Life of his life he takes to give, 

As a creator gives, to men ; 

But first they too themselves must live, 
And answer life with life again. 

Then, as two sparks, to mate endowed, 
Each to the other in flash of flame 

Leap and embrace from cloud to cloud, 
Instantly true to kindred claim, 

So the true pupil springs to take 
What springs to give the teacher true ; 

Electric circuit met they make, 

And the soul’s lightning flashes through. 


GRACE , NOT NATURE ,. 


85 


GRACE, NOT NATURR 

Not native gentleness of heart, 
Untaught submissiveness of will, 
The softly tones, the manner still, 
The yielding grace, the placid part; 

Not perfect trace of lineament, 

Not rose on cheek, not light in eye, 
Or finished form, or bearing high, 
Or smiles or tears to others lent, 

Most profit ; but a tempest quelled, 
The rebel passions reason-swayed, 

A turbid spirit crystal made, 

And all self-centred, self-upheld. 

A human will divorced from sin ! 

Not over-prone to do the wrong, 
But merged in His to whom belong 
The worlds without, the soul within. 


86 


A REGRET, 


A REGRET. 

I would I were alumnus here to-day! 

I would these pleasant haunts of task or play 
Were eloquent to me of vanished youth, 

And youth’s high heart and gallant quest of truth ! 
I would the gentle genius of the place 
Might yield for once a friendly guest the grace 
To greet him son, bid him here cease to roam 
And rest him here, again a child at home ! 

How would I grasp the old familiar hands, 

How join with joy the old congenial bands 

Of choicer souls, the noble brotherhood 

Who made each other’s gain their common good! 

At every turn a quicker beat of heart 
To some new touch of auld lang syne should start 
No spot of earth, no space of summer sky 
That should not look the look of days gone by. 
The walks where we at eve together strayed, 

The cheerful meadow, melancholy shade, 


A REGRET. 


87 


The slope of hill, the solemn river-marge, 

The sweep of valley landscape fair and large— 

All these bright aspects should bring back the time 
When life with Nature beat to perfect rhyme. 

The dear old buildings, bare to alien eyes, 

Should throng their ancient fronts with memories ; 
Casement, and coigne, each doorway’s square recess, 
Cornice, and cope, and cupola no less, 

Like some gray Gothic pile’s, should seem to swarm 
With storied emblem quaint, and carven form. 

% 

Fair genius of the spot, pray whisper low 
A hint to me of what I long to know; 

Unbind your breast to me, and part your store 
Of all this place’s legendary lore ; 

The blind tradition you so blithely read 
Is traced in lines that mock my utmost heed. 

Alas ! but nay, my conjuration fails ; 

I win from him not one of all his tales; 

Fast locked he keeps his legendary lore, 

Still mute to me, however I implore. 

Alone I walk amid a viewless throng, 

Unhearing hearken to a silent song. 


88 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS. 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS. 

THE OLD MEMBERS TO THE NEW. 

We greet you of us with heart-felt applause, 

We hail you brothers in a common cause. 

One is the spirit, yours, who give your gain, 

And ours, who give unhoarded heart and brain, 

To endow the great young future at our door 
With mind more skill, with knowledge ampler store. 
We work together in that goodly guild 
And ancient fellowship of letters, filled 
With the fine ardor that Erasmus knew, 

The breath of great desire that Milton drew. 

Joyful build ye your monuments, to stand 
Long as the date lasts of your native land. 

There is no more immortal mortal thought 
Than inspiration to this fashion wrought. 

Oxford and Cambridge, through their long young 
eld, 

The placid levels of calm peace have held, 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS, 89 


While round them dynasties have gone to doom, 
Or commonwealth exchanged with kingdom room. 
The Sorbonne, in its ancient neighborhood, 

Safe in the common awe, untouched has stood, 

Full in the central vortex of the wild 
Whirlwind of revolution, and has smiled, 

Seeing the pillared fabric of the state, 

Spurned from the deep foundations where it sate, 
Spin like a bauble in the eddying air, 

Vanish to wrack amid the tempest there,— 

And steadfast as a star the light has shone 
That bright the name still blazons of Sorbonne. 

Who founds a school of learning gifts his 
name 

With most sure perpetuity of fame ; 

When will the faithful fond tradition fail 
That links its founder with the fame of Yale? 

How else could he who gave his name to Brown 
Have gained the lease he holds of long renown ? 
Harvard and Phillips—blithe their memory springs 
And shames the oblivion of coeval kings ; 

And fresh his leaf on Vassar’s brow shall bide, 
Securely charmed from withering, when the pride 


90 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS. 


Of many a statesman’s, many a soldier’s bay, 

Green on their foreheads now, has passed away. 

Though spoken not, men yet might guess the 
name— 

No name but one would match the mighty fame— 

A patriot statesman’s, whose career of power 
Still makes his alma mater’s richest dower. 

Could one but limn him, featured like the god 
That erst Olympus wielded with his nod, 

But bid once more the thunders of that voice 
Make traitors tremble, patriot hearts rejoice, 

That form august, that kingly, awful mien 
Could one but conjure back upon the scene, 

Show us again the grave, majestic gait, 

Steadfast and slow, in which he bore the State, 

In which the growing State Christopherus bore, 

With faithful, patient strength, from shore to shore, 

Across the heady current of an age 

That stormed and fumed, with ineffectual rage, 

Eager to overturn, to overwhelm 
The trembling balanced hopes of freedom’s realm,— 
No tongue would falter from the full acclaim, 
Webster!—one voice, and one centennial name. 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS. 


91 


He nursed his giant boyhood at the breast 
Of mountains in our Alpland of the West, 

Fit nurture seemed it, when he came to tower 
A mountain among men, a peak of power, 

That took the scar of thunder, scath of storm, 
Brand of live lightning, with his lordly form, 

But stood despite, nay, brother to the cloud, 
Himself seemed master of the tempest loud, 
Hurling his bolts, and flashing far the blade 
Of vivid vengeance that his genius swayed. 

Yet oftenest fixed in mountainous repose— 

As when Mont Blanc uplifts his scalp of snows 
In the white sunshine and the blinding sky, 

Seems still to frown, but puts his thunder by— 

He loved at peace to dwell among his kind, 

Whom well that bodeful brow to peace inclined. 

Though false unkind refractions warp the 
ray 

By which they read his character to-day, 

Yet was this man our greatest, since the sun 
Missed to survey the mould of Washington. 

But had no rural Dartmouth hard beside 
His father’s stubborn acres, opened wide 


92 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS\ 


A door of opportunity and scope 
Before the brave old man’s pathetic hope 
To raise his children’s future chance somewhat 
Above the level of his lowly lot,— 

Perhaps instead of him they laid to sleep 
At Marshfield on the margin of the deep, 

The ocean nature by the ocean wave 
That kneels in ceaseless homage at his grave, 

The Atlantean shoulder bowed to bear 

The great weight of his country’s cause and care, 

A mute, inglorious Webster now might lie, 

Dead and forgot beneath his natal sky. 

Aye, his best title to his noble name, 

The safest lodged from heirs to bring it shame, 

Lord Dartmouth in that namesake college won 
Which found in Webster fostering foster-son. 

So speed of God we give you, noble band, 

The good deeds prosper which your hearts have 
planned ! 

Like the divining-rod they feigned of old 
Instinct with sense for feeling hidden gold, 

The seats of learning which you thus shall found 
Will range and search through all the region round, 


THE OPEN GUILD OF LETTERS. 

With a tentacular fine tact, to find 
Treasures more fair of else unwakened mind,— 
The quest still thriving after you have gone, 
Till that pure day of perfect knowledge dawn. 


93 


com AGE. 


COURAGE. 

AN EPIGRAM . 

Soldiers twain stood facing danger, 
Side by side, alone and still; 

Bold was one, to fear a stranger, 
Light of thought as stout of will. 

But the other, grave and serious, 
Deeply pondered where he stood, 

Felt the spell of the mysterious 
Overshadowing neighborhood 

Of the mortal menace hidden 

In that moment’s sudden chance ; 

Till the throng of thoughts unbidden 
Trampled white his countenance. 

Then his comrade marked his pallor 
And a rallying charge he made, 

Out of his light-hearted valor 

Lightly spoken, “You’re afraid ! ” 


com AGE. 


95 


“True, my friend,” with blanched lips said he ; 
“ I have fear as you have none ; 

But I stand here, staunch and steady,— 

You, with half my fear, would run ! ” 


96 


TO J. H. V. 


TO J. H. V. 

Affectionateness, magnanimity 

Unfailing, truth, and honor, and good cheer, 
Blithe humor, and bright wit, and a sincere 
Outspokenness, from affectation free — 

Simple frank friendliness, no brusquerie — 

Wise willingness to learn, above the fear 
Less learned than some other to appear; 

Ready responsiveness of sympathy, 

Fast faithfulness to trust, pure thought and high, 
Instinct of aspiration toward the best, 

The noblest, possible beneath the sky — 

If these things meeting in one manly breast 
Compose a gift for perfect friendship, I 
Have been in you with perfect friendship blest. 














SUGGESTION. 


97 


SUGGESTION 

OF A STANZA TO STAND AS THE CONCLUDING ONE TO 

bryant’s “june.” 

* * * * * 

Then gently o’er their hearts at last 
A soothing change should steal— 

The darkness of the pensive past 
A sense like dawn should feel; 

The tearful memory of their friend 
In tranquil tearful hope should end, 

The scene a scene reveal, 

Where breeze and song and light and bloom 
Have found a land without a tomb. 


7 


98 


MORIT UR US. 


MORITURUS. 

The pathos of the impotence of fame! 

Which cannot quench the spirit’s nobler thirst 
Incorporate in her nature from the first, 

God’s prophet, lodged within her mystic frame, 

To lash her as with secret scourge of flame, 

To pierce her as with voices and outburst 
Of warning, when she downward toward her 
worst 

Slides, and forgets her upward-beckoning aim! 

The pathos of the impotence of wealth, 

The pathos of the impotence of power, 

To buy back the lost bounding pulse of health, 
To stay, one step, the inexorable hour 
Advancing dreadful, boldly or by stealth, 

With feet which still that lessening space devour! 




















































































































* 











































VANJTAS VAN IT A 7 UM. 


99 


VANITAS VANITATUM. 

There is no profit in the earth—the gems which 
seem 

Deceive us, with a mocking, borrowed beam. 

We are somnambulists ; this mortal state 

Is a sleep-walking only—we await 

The voice of God to rouse us ;—like a fool, 

Who sees the mirrored sky within a pool, 

And claps his hands, deeming the splendid scene 
Indeed beneath the wave, indeed terrene, 

Nor lifts one upward glance to where true heaven 
Is bright with sunny noon or starry even— 

Like him, we dive in a deceiving sea 
And grasp at pearls with idiotic glee, 

Which are but imitations of the true, 

Deluded with a fashion and a hue ! 


100 


TEARS. 


TEARS. 

When sabbath bids the world repose, 

While evening’s lengthening shadows fall, 
How sweet to think away the woes 
That gather round us like a pall! 

When stealing sadness makes us weep, 

As thoughts of death come o’er the soul, 
As pensive memories wake from sleep, 

Or conscience’ voices on us roll; 

How it relieves the weary heart, 

And re-robes life with gladsome hue, 

And makes the ghosts of grief depart 
Beyond the twilight of our view, 

To pray in tears until the core 
Of such our sadness we consume, 

Till thoughts to trouble start no more, 

Or in their birthplace find their tomb! 




















WHOSE WAS THE BLAME f 


IOI 


WHOSE WAS THE BLAME? 

Whose was the blame ? Our crescent love had 
grown 

Full like the moon which, that December eve, 

Calmly and brightly on our bridal shone— 

The wane of Love, what future months re¬ 
trieve ? 

The winter moon seemed long to pause at full, 
Tranced fair and large in those pure spheres of 
sky, 

Night after night, as by some miracle 

Charmed not to wane, lest Love should wane and 
die. 

But the moon waned, and shrank into her grave, 
Thence duly, month by month, to issue new— 

Love from her “ vacant interlunar cave ” 

No long fulfilment of her cycle drew. 


102 


WHOSE WAS THE BLAME t 


We never knew what first the perfect shield 
Touched with the little dint that grew so wide 

Afterward—and left at last the ample field 

Starry in vain, whence Love had waned and died. 

Whose was the blame ? In her young horoscopes 
Of the sweet wedded years that were to be, 

I still had been the sovereign of her hopes, 

The star that ruled her bright astrology. 

And one fair face, forever formed anew, 

Had closed to me the vistas of my way; 

All voices sworn of lovely, good, or true, 

Heard, or but dreamed, had one sweet thing to say. 

Whose was the blame ? We saw each other such, 
And clasped each other’s hands without surprise ; 

Our mutual souls saluted in the touch, 

And doubt was slain between our conscious eyes. 

Were we not one ? Then twain were never one ! 
Our beings mixed and beat the same desire. 

Whose was the blame ? All things beneath the sun 
Change, and this changed ; but Love, could Love 
expire ? 


MINE WAS THE BLAME . 


103 


MINE WAS THE BLAME. 

Mine was the blame—all, all that cruel blame— 
Mine, mine, not ours, but only, only mine ; 

We knew not, thou nor I, but when he came, 

Death came, great Death, Death taught me mine 
and thine. 

He showed me thy cold hand, that clasped no more ; 
He showed me thy shut eyes in that eclipse ; 

He showed me thy fixed face, where played before 
The sweet sad smile—yet frozen on thy lips. 

Alone I knelt by that still shrine of clay, 

Whence the fair inner light of life had fled ; 

I could not see within—’twere vain to pay 
Vows at a shrine whose gentle saint was dead ! 

Yet I did long to tell thee, gentle saint, 

What the wise master Death was telling me ; 

My heart grew heavy with uneased complaint, 
Unwonted not to turn for ease to thee. 


104 


MINE WAS THE BLAME. 


Did I not move thee somewhat, placid clay, 

Did I not move thee somewhat with my pain ? 

Heardest thou naught of all I yearned to say ? 

Oh, ears how deaf, and oh, desire how vain ! 

Thy look seemed gracious that was so severe ; 

The awe was more for that no awe was meant; 

The fast pathetic eye that found no tear ! 

The lips relenting that did not relent! 

“Thine was the blame,” Death said, and touched 
thy hand ; 

“This hand,” he said, “ was warm when thine was 
cold ; 

See, I have closed these eyes from thy demand 

Of the old looks to looks no more the old, 

“And this cheek sealed, and these lips locked,” said 
Death, 

“ Now they are mine, not thine,” he sternly 
said, 

“Thine was the blame ; therefore I stopped her 
breath.” 

“ O Death,” I said, “ and would that I were dead ! ” 


MINE WAS THE BLAME. 


105 


Judicial Death made answer: “ Nay, but live ; 

I doom thee thus—thy punishment be life; 

Yet Death at last is kind, and can forgive ; 

What if loss gain whom gain had lost—thy wife ? 

So Death the judge was Death the comforter ; 

Thou, therefore, pitying saint, be comforted ; 
Just purgatorial pains brief space defer 
The nuptials wherein we aright will wed. 


lO 6 SHE DREAMS AND HE INTERPRETS 


SHE DREAMS AND HE INTERPRETS. 

February the Fourteenth . 

That dream of thine, my Valentine, 

Was full of grace to me; 

But now be mine, my Valentine, 

To solve thy dream for thee. 

In dream of night, thou saw’st alight, 

From heaven above sent down, 

An angel bright in sheen of white, 

The fairest here to crown, 

When, strange to see— was ’t he or she ? — 
The heavenly spirit stood, 

Beheld by thee, and there crowned me 
Most fair as found most good. 

In this thy dream, my Valentine, 

The angel one thou saw’st, 

I truly deem, my Valentine, 

Thyself, the dreamer, wast; 


SHE DREAMS AND HE INTERPRETS IO/ 


For else, I trow, my Valentine, 

The shining stranger’s duty 
Had crowned thy brow, my Valentine, 
For goodness and for beauty. 


io8 


MARY ,; NOT MINE. 


MARY, NOT MINE. 

I dreamed of thee not many nights ago, 

Mary, not mine, yet most beloved one; 

Long years of pain and grief had brought thee low 
And thou wert passing from beneath the sun. 

Mary, my heart grew very sad for thee 
So surely wasting with serene decay, 

And for myself I thought how slow to me 

Would wear the weary hours, and thou away. 

Why should my heart grow sad for thee in dreams? 
Why should I dream of thee in any way ? 

Dream-like of thee my waking vision seems, 

And for my pain suffice the hours of day! 

Yet would I choose to suffer on asleep, 

Rather than dream sweet dreams of aught but 
thee, 

And dreamless rest were cause to wake and weep, 
To miss the pain more sweet than rest to me. 


MARY ,; NOT MINE. 


109 


Let me go on to dream, asleep, awake, 

My dreams are mine, though thou be in my 
dreams; 

And even in dreams asleep I do not break 
The inviolate hopeless silence which beseems. 


I IO 


A SABBATH AT SEA. 


A SABBATH AT SEA. 

The Voice that walked o’er Galilee 
Hath spoken from on high ; 

The sky keeps sabbath with the sea, 
The air with sea and sky. 

Thine, Lord, is this sabbatic sky, 
Thine this sabbatic sea, 

This broad sabbatic air bears by 
Burdens of rest from Thee. 

To this deep sabbath flowing round 
And o’er and under me, 

My soul within her mystic bound 
Answers, as sea to sea. 

Voice, flown from Galilee to heaven! 
That, dropping chrismal speech, 

Canst all day long and all the seven 
Sabbatic gospels preach,— 


A SABBATH AT SEA. 


Ill 


Thanks yet for this pacific hour 
Of Sabbath on the sea— 

To feel the breathing rest of power 
Is strength and rest to me. 


112 


H. G. W. 


H. G. W. 

AT EIGHTY. 

A gentle river winding full and strong, 

Through fertile fields, more fertile where it flows, 

And watering all that, its bright banks along, 
Dependent on its lavish bounty grows — 

Such ever, in his affluent, generous prime, 

Was the dear man whom we to praise delight; 

What is he, since his eighty years in rime 

Have wreathed about his brow their circlet white ? 

That gentle river still more gentle now, 

And greater toward the welcome of the sea. 

O great and gentle river, haste not thou 
To meet the welcome of eternity! 










TIDES. 


113 


TIDES. 

As when the sea swells, lifted by the moon, 

And pours, in one wide cataract, to the shore, 
Then the precipitant waters, at each door 
Of inlet to the mainland, importune 
To be admitted, and, admitted, soon 

Brim creek and bay with ocean running o’er, 

Till their desirous banks can bound no more, 

And sit content but to contain the boon ; 

Yet haply, here or there, some sluiceway sealed 
Might interpose inhospitable bar 

To the sea’s suit, however he appealed 
With his tide’s stress and influence of the star, 

And gates of want where suppliant wealth had 
kneeled 

Bide unenriched by bounty brought so far : 

So tides sometimes of influence from the sea 
Of the Immortal Life that, pressing round, 

Invests the mortal lives of men, redound 

In the main’s mighty multitudinous plea 
8 


TIDES. 


1 14 

And gentle surge of importunity, 

Against the barriers that our being bound, 

To seek if there some ready sluice be found, 
And soul not loth full-brimmed with God to be ; 

Then, lifted high the gladsome gates of will, 
And wide withdrawn the self-withdrawing doors, 
The ocean of the fulness of the still 
Spirit of God into the spirit pours ; 

Yet souls that list keep fast their gates, until 
The sea recedes and leaves them empty shores! 


MY OPEN POLAR SEA . 


IIS 


MY OPEN POLAR SEA. 

As those who sail in quest of quiet seas, 

Supposed to sleep about the sleeping pole, 

Eternal halcyon waves, the term and goal 
Of hazard, and of hope, and hope’s unease, 

Deep bays, bright islands, happy haunts—as these, 
Whatever chances breasting, armed in soul 
To do or suffer, so to know the whole, 

Stem toward the Arctic up the steep degrees, 

Nor daunted, though a frozen continent 
Thwart them with sheer obstruction, coast along, 
And seek and find somewhere the straitening rent 
That yields them grudged entrance, right or wrong; 

And still they strive, on their high aim intent, 

And strive the more, the more the perils throng: 

So sails my soul for that pacific sea, 

The pole and vertex of her different sphere, 

Where equatorial sway and swift career 
Are charmed and changed to fast tranquillity : 


Il6 MY OPEN POLAR SEA. 

Beyond where storms can beat she there shall be, 
Safe locked in blissful calms through all her year • 
Unquiet hope no more, unquiet fear, 

Can vex her perfect peace and fair degree: 

But she must tend her sail, and smite her oar ; 

And take meanwhile the buffet of the tide ; 

Nor, when she hears the rending icebergs roar 
Upon her, tremble, but, abashed, abide 
To enter that strait gate and dreadful door— 

This portal passed, lo, havens free and wide ! 


WHOSOEVER. 


U7 


WHOSOEVER. 

Like a quick sunbeam, parted from the sun, 

And lightly speeding on his way through space, 
That plies, nor tires, but plies the forward chase, 
As counting yet his journey just begun, 

How many goals soever, touched and won, 

And kindling from the kisses of his face, 

Along the gleaming rearward of the race, 

Entice him to esteem his errand done ; 

Lighting on whatsoever thing he meet, 

Abiding wheresoever he alight— 

Guest to abide, but courier on to fleet, 

So ceasing never from still-ceasing flight— 

Yet swerves he not, though heart of grace, to 
greet 

What errs from his strict path, to left or right : 

Such the swift Angel of His Presence sent, 

Winged with a whosoever, from the throne, 

Who flies in flame and flies to every zone 


WHOSOEVER. 


I iS 

From pole to pole beneath the firmament, 
Charged the glad tidings of their Lord’s intent 
Toward his elect obedient to make known ; 
Cinctured with speed, he flies as he has flown, 
Forever, on his heavenly errand bent; 

Lighting to bless whatever heart he meet, 
Abiding there wherever he alight— 

Guest to abide, but herald forth to fleet, 

So ceasing still from still-unceasing flight— 

Yet turns that angel aspect not to greet 
Save whosoever will, to left or right. 


LOVE AND WILL . 


119 


LOVE AND WILL. 


I read her wrong at first, and called her vain ; 

I saw no simple nature in her ways ; 

All fresh first thoughts seemed tangled in a maze 
Of conscious tricks, and smiles conceived in pain. 


She was a gentle woman, pure and fair ; 

Her mind was radiant, like a mansion lit 
To let the gleam of art illumine it— 

Such sculptured thoughts, such pictured dreams 
were there! 


Her girlish heart, too, was a miracle 
For such a tender sparkle of kind dews 
As it could s^nd, to soften and suffuse 
The clear gray light of eyes made beautiful. 


120 


LOVE AND WILL. 


But something froward in me slandered her, 
That affectation spoiled what else were sweet; 
So naught of all she did or said could meet 
My evil mind, that ever made demur. 


ii. 


I used, when days were dark and life was pain, 
To lapse for comfort into thoughts of Christ; 
’Twas sweet to cease, and sink imparadised 
In love that always changed my loss to gain. 


That morn I walked beneath a gladsome sun, 
In the fresh fields, amid the vital air ; 
Importunate joy around me everywhere 
Stormed at my heart if entrance might be won, 


In vain. My dull, cold heart refused to sing ; 

She would not, could not, join the jocund tune 
Of the blithe weather and the wealthy June— 
“Peace first,” she cried, “some joy from peace 
might spring.” 


LOVE AND WILL. 


121 


But ever a divine enchantment strong 
Held me suspense from sinking into rest : 

“O Christ," I said, “1 seek thy cradling breast, 
Child that I am, too tired to wait so long! ” 


“ Not tired enough,” such sense I seemed to draw 
cc Strong still to hold thy heart from loving 
Nay, 

Not to be tired is childlike, but to obey ; 

Love is delight, but love is also law.” 


a Amen, O Lord,” out broke the quick reply ; 
“Yea, and henceforth law too shall be delight. 
Behold! I meet thy will, in will’s despite, 

And, bidden, love—the bidding reason why.” 


iii. 

As when sometimes the baffled hearkening sense 
Is conscious of a kind of filmy slide, 

That parts it from the world of sound outside, 
And blurs each audible image issuing thence, 


122 


LOVE AND WILL. 


And idle rumors fill the brain self-bred, 

Noisily null pretences of right sound, 

That ring, and roar, and rumble, and redound, 
But bring no message to the half-crazed head ; 

Suddenly then that membranous wall will break, 
That deafening din of void confusion cease, 
And to the grateful ear again at peace 
The silent world of outward sound awake : 

So fared it with my heart, when I obeyed ; 

That seizure of enchantment gave me free ; 

At once I was where I desired to be, 

In balmy rest upon His bosom laid. 

Out of that peace upleapt a sudden song, 
Artesian inlet from the general mirth 
Of the glad sun and the sun-gladdened earth— 
Upleapt, aspired, exulted, and was strong. 


IV. 

Love had been law, out love became delight, 
And love become delight gave other eyes 
Wherewith to read the loved one otherwise, 
Redeemed to wholly fair when read aright. 


LOVE AND WILL. 


123 


Lovely she was, and lovelier ever grew 

To the purged eyes of love that saw the truth, 
Till thither she, and yet in lovely youth, 
Where all is love and love is all, withdrew. 

Love for delight is insecure delight, 

But love for law becomes delight indeed ; 
Such love’s delight is an immortal meed, 

It laughs at loss, or change, or death’s despite. 

I love her changed to silent, and rejoice ; 

For what she was, I love her, here of yore ; 
For what she is, and there forevermore 
Shall be, I love her, hearkening for her voice ! 


24 


AT THE SUPPER 


AT THE SUPPER. 

I sat at supper with the guests of Christ 
One summer Sabbath’s tranced afternoon, 

When not a breath perturbed the perfect tune, 
Though but a breath to break it had sufficed. 

We charmed within this sphere of worldly calm, 

A calm not worldly charmed us in its sphere ; 

We sat in silence, but we seemed to hear 
Pulses of other silence, like a psalm. 

The sense was of a voice that whispered, Peace ! 
And hands outstretched that benediction poured ; 
Love grew sweet pain, and so around the board 
A hymn arose that gave our love release. 

Then, grave and sweet, some rhythmic scriptures read, 
Echoing clear from holy long ago, 

Told us of trust in Him as rest from woe— 

Woe of the laden heart and laboring head, 


AT THE SUPPER. 


125 


And, like an exhalation, prayer aspired ; 

Born of the earth, but born to brooding skies, 

A weight of want with leavening wish to rise, 

And buoyed by faith that was what it desired. 

My heart was broken with the broken bread ; 

I saw the broken body of the Lord ; 

Broken therewith was every wish that warred 
In me against his wish that for me bled. 

I bowed me praying, and so praying felt 
The presence of a brother unforgiven; 

I did not hate nor scorn, but I had driven 
Him heart from heart with grace ungracious dealt. 

I leaned and wept, and loved and longed and wept; 
And when the wine was poured that meant His 
blood, 

My heart was wholly melted in the flood 
Of one strong mastership that o’er me swept. 

I thought how lavish His forgiveness was, 

How He had poured His pardon without stint 
In rivers of blood upon a heart of flint, 

And used no measure, made no careful pause. 


126 


AT THE SUPPER. 


Bitterly sweet the rapture of my pain, 

But I went out wholesomely comforted ; 

I told my brother all the Lord had said, 
And we forgave each other with tears again. 


ENTICED. 


12 7 


ENTICED. 


i. 

With what clear guile of gracious love enticed, 

I follow forward, as from room to room, 

Through doors that open into light from gloom, 
To find, and lose, and find again the Christ! 

He stands and knocks, and bids me ope the door; 
Without he stands, and asks to enter in : 

Why should he seek a shelter sad with sin ? 

Will he but knock and ask, and nothing more ? 

He knows what ways I take to shut my heart, 

And if he will he can himself undo 
My foolish fastenings, or by force break through, 
Nor wait till I fulfil my needless part. 

But nay, he will not choose to enter so,— 

He will not be my guest save I consent, 

Nor, though I say, Come in, is he content; 

I must arise and ope, or he will go. 


28 


ENTICED. 


He shall not go ; I do arise and ope,— 

“ Come in, dear Lord, come in and sup with me, 
O, blessed guest, and let me sup with thee,”— 
Where is the door ? for in this dark I grope, 

And cannot find it soon enough ; my hand, 

Shut hard, holds fast the one sure key I need, 
And trembles, shaken with its eager heed ; 

No other key will answer my demand. 

The door between is some command undone ; 
Obedience is the key that slides the bar, 

And lets him in, who stands so near, so far; 

The doors are many, but the key is one. 

Which door, dear Lord ? knock, speak, that I may 
know ; 

Hark, heart, he answers with his hand and voice,—- 
O, still small sign, I tremble and rejoice, 

Nor longer doubt which way my feet must go. 

Full lief and soon this door would open too, 

If once my key might find the narrow slit 
Which, being so narrow, is so hard to hit,— 

But lo ! one little ray that glimmers through, 


ENTICED. 


129 


Not spreading light, but lighting to the light,— 
Now steady, hand, for good speed’s sake be slow, 
One straight right aim, a pulse of pressure, so,— 
How small, how great, the change from dark to 
bright! 


11. 


Now he is here I seem no longer here ! 

This place of light is not my chamber dim, 

It is not he with me, but I with him, 

And host, not guest, he breaks the bread of cheer. 


I was borne onward at his greeting,—he 

Earthward had come, but heavenward I had gone ; 
Drawing him hither, I was thither drawn, 

Scarce welcoming him to hear him welcome me ! 


I lie upon the bosom of my Lord, 

And feel his heart, and time my heart thereby; 
The tune so sweet, I have no need to try, 

But rest and trust and beat the perfect chord. 

9 


i3° 


ENTICED. 


A little while I lie upon his heart, 

Feasting on love, and loving there to feast, 

And then once more the shadows are increased 
Around me, and I feel my Lord depart. 

Again alone, but in a farther place 

I sit with darkness, waiting for a sign ; 

Again I hear the same sweet plea divine, 

And suit, outside, of hospitable grace. 

This is his guile,—he makes me act the host 
To shelter him, and lo ! he shelters me ; 

Asking for alms, he summons me to be 
A guest at banquets of the Holy Ghost. 

So, on and on, through many an opening door 
That gladly opens to the key I bring, 

From brightening court to court of Christ 
King, 

Hope-led, love-fed, I journey evermore. 

At last I trust these changing scenes will cease ; 
There is a court, I hear, where he abides; 

No door beyond, that further glory hides,— 

My host at home, all change is changed to peace. 


DEDICATION HYMN 


131 


DEDICATION HYMN. 

What we have builded, Lord, be thine ; 

Thy gift we give again to thee ; 

Hither now cause thy face to shine, 
Accepted let our offering be. 

Have we not builded for thy name ? 

Here thy great name in grace record ; 
Visit the place in hallowing flame, 

And fill it with thy Spirit, Lord! 

Souls in that fulness plunged and lost, 
That awful baptism from above, 

Reap a perpetual Pentecost 

Of power and wisdom, joy and love. 

Thus, Lord, baptized from thee to learn, 

Or thus from thee baptized to teach, 
Here with one passion may we burn, 
Christ and his Cross to live and preach! 


132 


ANNIVERSARY HYMN. 


ANNIVERSARY HYMN. 

O thou, with whom a thousand years 
And a swift day are one, 

Behold, our human hopes and fears 
A little round have run. 

Hopes for thy cause, ennobling hopes ! 

How foolish all the fears ! 

Shamed were a faith that droops and gropes, 
Since such accomplished years. 

Our hearts are large with thankfulness; 

We glory in the Lord ; 

His Spirit doth our spirits press 
As we his grace record. 

Short rest in camp, then forth for fight ! 

Welcome the long campaign ! 

Girded with meekness and with might, 
Spread we Immanuel’s reign. 


ANNIVERSAR V HYMN. 


133 


Like the blue bending firmament, 
That kingdom yet must span, 
From shore to shore, a continent 
Redeemed to God for man ! 


134 


NATIONAL HYMN . 


NATIONAL HYMN. 

A nation to the God of nations now 

Peal high the paean of your thankful praise ! 

All voices, Holy, holy, holy Thou, 

Hosanna, Lord of hosts ! the triumph raise. 

O God, amen ! We thank thee for the grace, 

The glory of the grace that on this land 

Has beamed in sunshine from thy smiling face, 

And streamed in bounty from thine open hand. 

And, Lord, we thank thee for the Sinai cloud 
That threatened long the long-suspended stroke; 

How with hearts humbled, and with faces bowed, 
We wept and worshipped when that thunder 
broke ! 

At thy rebuke, O God, the tempest fled ; 

At thy behest thy bow appeared on high ; 

We saw, and walked with hope-elated tread, 

Held by thy hand and guided by thine eye. 


NATIONAL HYMN. 


135 


We face our future, glorying in the Lord; 

We welcome all thou shalt for us provide; 
With God for our exceeding great reward, 
Rich we shall be whatever fail beside ! 



WEBSTER 


AN ODE 


O nostrum et decus et columen! 


1782-1852 


IN GRATEFUL 


AND AFFECTIONATE TOKEN OF FELLOWSHIP 

FOUND IN SYMPATHY OF 
ADMIRATION AND REVERENCE FOR WEBSTER 

TO 

MY FRIEND 


HALBERT STEVENS GREENLEAF 




















WEBSTER : AN ODE . 


139 


WEBSTER ; AN ODE. 


Ye see him truly, now: 

Their hour and power is past 

Who fain had shamed that brow : 
It wears its crown at last 

Hail him, his countrymen i 
First of your foremost few, 

Given back to you again 
Yet greater than ye knew. 

Greater—for, good and great; 
Not false, as they forswore ! 

He, who to save the State 
The State to please forbore. 

Well may the State he saved— 
Saved at such cost of blame, 

While still her mood he braved— 
Accord him, late, his fame ! 


140 


WEBSTER: AN ODE\ 


II. 


So sang the poet, rendered bold and wise 
By the fine joy he found in being just ; 

Wise to foreknow what should be, therefore must, 
^Bold to foredate it with creating eyes. 

But the State hearkening, jealous for her name, 
Heard that sharp challenge of her thanks and 
praise : 

What did he to deserve such meed ? she says: 
Speak out, lone voice, and here rehearse his claim. 

O State, he said, for, lo, thou knowest it all, 

Might I be silent, and wouldst praise him thou ! 
The public hand should wreathe this public 
brow, 

And the great dead awaits his Country’s call. 

Rash individual voice, speak what thou will, 

To hear is mine, the sovereign State replies : 

Me it behooves to wait and to be wise, 

With equal ear weighing the good, the ill. 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


141 


O just and reverend State—the poet spake— 

Much musing lest ill heard so loud and long 
Have needs ere now full nigh forestalled the song, 
I sing—for his, and thine, and mine own sake. 

hi. 

At that not ancient date 
Before thou grewest great, 

He knew thee, and he loved thee well, O State ! 
For, hearing oft thine early tale rehearsed, 

The boy was from the first 
In patriot wisdom versed. 

Him his heroic sire 
At evening by his fire 

Taught the pure passion of his own desire— 
Desire for thee that thou shouldst prosper long 
And be too wise and strong 
To do or suffer wrong. 

Wide hopes he learned for thee> 

His country, soon to be 
Wide as his hopes outspread from sea to sea : 


142 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


Yet were his hopes as wise as they were wide, 
For conscience was as guide 
And prophet to his pride. 

Thence thee, O State, yet young, 

He with prophetic tongue 
Chid to sit still when sore with passion stung 
His age ripe earlier than thy longer youth, 
With more experienced ruth, 

Knew to advise thee truth. 

True things for pleasant, he, 

With Roman firmness free 
From too much pity or awe, proposed to thee 
Such virtue of clear counsel, in the blood 
Streams, an ennobling flood, 

From father wise and good. 


IV. 


Bred in his father’s simple school severe, 
Where sober godly fear 
And filial awe were dear, 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


143 


He learned that saving sense 
Of bond to duty, whence 
Flow to us still these streams of good immense. 

For not alone his fealty to the State 
Rescued us in those great 
Hinges of fear and fate, 

When, under skies of gloom, 

He, hearkening, knew the boom 
That burst at last in thunder-peals of doom : 

His forty years of great example, too, 

Staunchly, in all men’s view, 

To its own promise true, 

A fashion slowly wrought 
In us, unheeding taught, 

Kindred with him in our habitual thought. 

The man was more than the great words he spoke 
This weighted every stroke 
Of speech that from him broke— 

That grave Websterian speech ! 

What sovereign touch and reach 
Empowered it from the man, to tone and teach ! 


144 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


So, mother State, our schooling once begun 
Under thy Washington 
Advanced with this thy son : 

His equal mood sedate, 

Self-governing, wise to wait, 

Reverent toward God, he shared to thee, O State 1 


v. 


He gladdened in the gladsome light 
Of jurisprudence, and that light he made 
More gladsome for thy children—such the might 
Wherewith the right, 

In wrong’s despite, 

This conquering knight 
Bore off in rescue from the field of fight, 

Those bloodless jousts of law that drew his dreaded 
blade. 


His Dartmouth—thine, O State, and his—he 
found 

With ills beleaguered round, 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


145 


Helpless, of crafty foes the purposed prey. 

The lists were set 
One famous final day, 

And lances met 

In tourney, and fair Dartmouth trembling lay, 
With scarce a breath, 

Dreading her doom, a trouble worse than death. 
But lo, a lance 
She sees advance, 

Sees a fresh lance ride up and plunge into the fray. 
To right and left the field gives way, 

Nor bides that shock to meet. 

He charges to the judges’ seat; 

Onset of argument, 

Volley of precedent, 

Tempest of eloquent 
Logic and learning blent, 

Deluging blowc on blows, 

He overthrows his foes. 

Her foes are overthrown, 

Dartmouth will have her own. 

Cheer thee, O cherishing mother, in thy son, 

His task for thee is done, 

Thy battle fought and won. 

io 


146 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


Beholders, you may go 
That have seen this overthrow - 
Why do they linger so ? 

A sight that well might draw 
The wonder of the field, 

The victor knight they saw, 

That steel-clad knight, unclasp his dint-proof shield, 
Then—all his mighty heart uncovered there, 

His tender mighty heart to view laid bare, 

The filial in him to its depths astir— 

Go with his heart, as that a buckler were, 

Grieved that he could not bring a costlier, 

And standing by his mother cover her ! 

Such passion of great pity strikes an awe 
Even into breasts that sit to judge the law. 

From the august enthronement where he sate 
By Marshall’s side, that pillar of the State, 

Story looks down with bland surprise, 

The friend’s proud gladness beaming in his 
eyes : 

He drops the habitual pen, 

Nor takes it up again ; 

Each weighty word, 

Before, he duly heard, 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


147 


But now transfixed he sees the speaker speak, 

While Spartan tears roll, one by one, down Mar¬ 
shall’s cheek. 

Thus then it there befell 
That justice prospered well, 

And Dartmouth held her right 
By the valor of this knight, 

And this knight, O State, was he 
Whom, with unequal praise, I praise to thee. 


VI. 


Implicit in her cause, O State, the cause 
Of many another of thy schools was won, 

And large the sequel was 
Beyond the sanguine guess of thy sagacious son. 
A thousand seats of learning freed 
Leapt at that pregnant stroke : 

Broken, they said, the intolerable yoke 
Meant to subdue us servile to the greed 
Of scramblers in the legislative hall— 

Each of us there a partisan foot-ball 

For rogues to kick and scuffle for at need— 


143 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


That fatal forming yoke 
Smiting he broke, 

Once as with flail of oak 
Smiting, forever broke. 

Henceforth, they sang, O State, thy sacred trusts 
Of bountiful bestowment shall retain 
Their plighted dedication, to remain, 

Inviolable all, 

Secure alike from the rapacious lusts 
And from the whimsies raw 
Of demagogues and tamperers with the law, 

Mad with desire of gain 
And unchastised of awe. 

So sang the choir of colleges aloud 
That their rejoicing rang, 

And they moreover sang : 

Now every use and beauty be endowed 
With wealth to make them through long future 
live. 

No more misgivings stint your giving ! Give, 

Ye sons and daughters of a noble State : 

Pledged are your gifts from fate. 

Nor long do answers wait: 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


149 

In golden streams with emulous haste outpoured, 
On every hand 
Throughout the land, 

From broken coffers flows the escaping hoard. 
Science lifts up her voice 
In gladness, and rejoice 

Letters and art, and want and woe the while 
Sweet pity and love beguile 

To dry their tears, be comforted and smile. 

A better alchemy transmuted gold 
Backward to blessings manifold ; 

And these, O State, thy gains through him, are 
they 

Greatly, whereby thou standest and art strong 
And beautiful, O State, this day, 

And yet to ages long, 

We trust, we pray, 

A theme of love and thanks, of eloquence and song. 

VII. 

Thy commerce, too, that bond to bind thee one, 

He served at point of need 
When a pernicious seed 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


150 

Planted and fostered in it, had begun, 
Struggling toward air and sun, 

To promise fruit of brother feud and strife 
And menace to thy life. 

O State, bethink thee well, 

How, woven in words of law 
And specious to inspire obedient awe, 

A charm of false enchantment fell 
Once on that river wide of thy domain, 

A sinister spell, 

And broadcast sown on all his watery train. 

It did not stay the waters in their flow, 

The tide’s great stress, the current, still 
strong; 

But to each cruising keel that clove along 
And asked that way to go, 

It used its lust to answer yes or no, 

And wantonly more often answered no. 
From harbor mouth to river head, 

From stream to stream and lake to lake, 
That evil spell was like to spread, 

And thy one web of commerce make 
A thousand tatters torn and shred. 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


151 

Then a wise master of the spell appeared, 

To solve its magic bond : 

He waved no wizard wand 
Reverse, nor counter incantation whispered weird : 
Simply the truth he spoke, 

With truth the charm of falsehood broke ; 
Daring thy law above the law invoke, 

That young unmeasured might from sleep once more 
he woke. 

Thenceforth, O State, from fountain head to 
sea 

Thy waters all to every keel were free. 

‘ Of many one,’ 

The motto for thy commerce from thy son ; 
As one of many thou 
Thyself in sequel now 

Art, and shalt be, while oceans roll and rivers 
run. 


VIII. 

He taught thy court of law to hear 
Speech of a strain that there has since been mute, 
Clear ethic tone, or Christian, that went near 


152 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


To charge and change the place’s atmosphere, 
And give it higher other attribute 
Than highest grave juridical dispute. 

With wonder and with awe 
Men saw 

The lawyer leave the law, 

Or raise it rather, while with easy ascent 
Rising to his sublimer argument 
He spoke to listening bench and bar 
And reverent popular ear that heard from far, 

Of Christ and of Christ’s grace 
To children, little children, of our race. 

And conscience, that dread might within the breast, 
How thrice more dreadful made 
Seemed it, as he portrayed 
The goad inexorable that gave no rest, 

No pause, but ever urged and pressed 
The sleepless guilty soul, till he confessed. 

Mute now these high forensic strains, 

Long mute, O State, but not their influence spent 
The memory and tradition yet remains 
Transmitted, safe among thy glorious gains 
Through him, thy son, a force and element 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


153 


To lawyers for a less unworthy aim, 

And spur to spurn ignoble ends with noble shame. 


IX. 


Nor served thee not that large bucolic life, 

So simply lived, and grandly—simply, though 
Report and rumor rife 
And general gaze that could not gaze its fill 
Made it a spectacle and show, 

Whereof men pleased themselves with fabling 
still. 

He could not stay or go, 

Could not at will 

Unbend in casual jest, in manly sport, 

But some, for love or thrift, would spread a wide 
report. 

The sun cannot be hid 
The heavens amid, 

The sun is seen, because he shines, 

And the sun shines, because he is the sun, 

And, sun-like, Webster’s lines 
Out into all the earth afar were run. 


154 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


Such was the man, and so 
His private life was public; all he did, 

Or said, or was, was known, 

And nothing could be hid ; 

And nothing needed, for his ways were good, 

His most unguarded ways, and safely shown. 

His noble simple ways 
Supplied the speech of men with daily food 
For honest praise— 

Not idle, since to praise the good and fair 
Is to grow like, through habit, unaware. 

Men liked to hear and tell 

How farmer’s garb became the great man 
well : 

And everywhere the farmer felt more space, 

An ampler air, a franker grace, 

Ennoble his vocation, with the thought, 

He is a farmer, Webster so has wrought. 
Somewhat more noble they already who 
Learn to think nobly of the work they do. 

So a diffusive lesson of far reach 

Thy Webster taught, not studious to teach, 

(As too he pleased, not studious to please) 

When but he slipped the customary weight 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


155 


Of public duty, or the lawyer’s toil, 

For intervals of ease 
Sought in returns to that estate 
From which he sprang, swart worker in the soil. 

His way in farming all men knew ; 

Way wide, forecasting, free, 

A liberal tilth that made the tiller poor. 

That huge Websterian plough what furrows drew ! 
Through fallows fattened from the barren sea. 
Yoked to that plough and matched for mighty 
size, 

What oxen moved !—in progress equal, sure, 
Unconscious of resistance, as of force 
Not finite, elemental, like his own, 

Taking its way with unimpeded course. 

He loved to look into their meek brown eyes, 

That with a light of love half human shone 
Calmly on him from out the ample front, 
While, with a kind of mutual, wise, 

Mute recognition of some kin, 

Superior to surprise, 

And schooled by immemorial wont, 

They seemed to say, We let him in. 


156 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


He is of us, he is, by natural dower, 

One in our brotherhood of great and peaceful power. 

So, when he came to die 
At Marshfield by the sea, 

And now the end is nigh, 

Up from the pleasant lea 
Move his dumb friends in solemn, slow, 

Funereal procession, and before 
Their master’s door 

In melancholy file compassionately go ; 

He will be glad to see his trusty friends once more. 
Now let him look a look that shall suffice, 

Lo, let the dying man 
Take all the peace he can 

From those large tranquil brows and deep soft eyes. 
Rest it will be to him, 

Before his eyes grow dim, 

To bathe his aged eyes in one deep gaze 
Commingled with old days, 

On faces of such friends sincere, 

With fondness brought from boyhood, dear. 

Farewell, a long look and the last, 

And these have turned and passed. 


WEBSTER : AN ODE. 


i5 7 


Henceforth he will no more, 

As was his wont before, 

Step forth from yonder door 
To taste the freshness of the early dawn, 

The whiteness of the sky, 

The whitening stars on high, 

The dews yet white that lie 
Far spread in pearl upon the glimmering lawn ; 
Never at evening go, 

Sole pacing to and fro, 

With musing step and slow, 

Beneath the cope of heaven set thick with stars, 
Considering by whose hand 
Those works, in wisdom planned, 

Were fashioned, and still stand 
Serenely fast and fair above these earthly jars. 

Never again. Forth he will soon be brought 
By neighbors that have loved him, having known, 
Plain farmers, with the farmer’s natural thought 
And feeling, sympathetic to his own. 

All in a temperate air, a golden light, 

Rich with October, sad with afternoon, 

Fitly let him be laid, with rustic rite, 

To rest amid the ripened harvest boon, 


r 5 8 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


He loved the ocean’s mighty murmur deep, 

And this shall lull him through his dreamless sleep 
But those plain men will speak above his head, 
This is a lonesome world, and Webster dead ! 

Be sure, O State, that he, 

So great, so simple, wrought for thee, 

By only being what he could but be. 

But how for thee, with pain and travail dear 
He wrought, this yet some space I pray thee further 
hear. 


x. 


Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill fast anchored 
stand, to stand for aye 

Part and parcel of thy mainland, as they stand se¬ 
cure to-day ; 

Part and parcel of thy story, wedded one with thee 
in fate, 

These fair names are sealed to glory fadeless as 
thine own, O State! 

But as fast as Rock or Hill is rooted in thine earthy 
breast, 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


159 


And as fast as their brave memory clings and clasps 
thee East and West, 

Even so fast, forever blended, braid in braid, and 
strand with strand, 

With them Webster, name and fame, is bound in 
one unsundered band. 

Words are deeds, and in these places words were 
spoken by thy son, 

Dear to memory, dear and deathless, as the deeds 
that here were done. 

O the joy, the exultation, that by him had voice 
at length, 

Then when first the new-born nation guessed the 
greatness of its strength ! 

How like ocean to his bases by the breath of tempest 
stirred, 

Did those seas of upturned faces surge beneath his 
spoken word! 

Young he was then, with his country, and he felt 
the wine of youth 

Leap along his bounding pulses in those morning 
paths of truth. 


160 WEBSTER: AN ODE. 

The exultant young emotion in the multitudinous 
heart 

Of the people that to live for was his chosen patriot 
part, 

Seemed to find in his one bosom room capacious of 
it all, 

Where with flood and ebb like ocean it could heave 
in rise and fall. 

Yet his words of cheer were sober, and he checked 
and chastened joy, 

Teaching us, by heed of duty, in the man to merge 
the boy. 

Then to see him, then to hear him, speaking for 
his country’s cause, 

Roused, yet showing that unbounded might unroused 
within him was, 

All the inward man in motion, mind, and heart, and 
soul, and will, 

Meet the outward man to match it and its great de¬ 
sire fulfil— 

Height elate, transfigured feature, majesty sublime 
with grace, 

Glorious in the awful beauty of Olympian form and 

face ; 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. l6l 

Voice that like the pealing clarion clear above the 
battle loud 

Pierced and thrilled the dinning noises of the mixed 
tumultuous crowd ; 

Thought that smote like bolted thunder, passion like 
the central fires 

Underneath the rocked volcano tossing to and fro 
its spires ; 

Slow imagination kindling, kindling slow, but flam¬ 
ing vast 

Over the wide tract of reason its far-beaming ray to 
cast; 

Single words like stalwart warriors, of those mailed 
knights of old, 

Standing unsupported ready for the champion com¬ 
bat bold ; 

Words again in serried order, like an irresistible 
host 

Moving as one man in measure, with a tread to shake 
the coast— 

Eloquence rapt into action, action like a god, sub¬ 
lime— 

O the life, the light, the splendor, of that flush efful¬ 
gent prime ! 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


162 


XI. 

And thine he was, O State, this matchless man 
The statesman still, whether in popular speech 
He pleased yet awed the great promiscuous throng 
And taught them that grave wisdom intermixed 
With memories and with hopes inspiring joy, 

Staid joy and wholesome, purged of vain conceit; 
Or in discourse statelier and more august, 

Decent in his magnificent array, 

He stood to speak before the flower and choice 
Frequent of all the learning of the land; 

Or in the senate, prime among his peers, 
Consulting and disputing matters high 
Of general concernment ; or in turn 
A counsellor of presidents, and wise 
Head of ambassadors to nations, firm 
And prudent opportunely to devise 
The equal mutual league, forestalling war, 

That knits kin states in peace and amity; 

Nay, even in legal argument full oft, 

Defending private causes, his large thought 
Prompt in presaging heed of consequence, 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


163 


Engaged him to a circumspection wide 

Of what might help or harm the commonwealth : 

Ever the statesman—this his statesmanship, 

To keep thee whole and one to be a state, 

A state, and not that lamentable doom 
A hundred petty fragments of thyself, 

Weakling and warring, each the prey of each, 

And each and all the prey of foreign states, 
Whichever need or greed or chance might 
tempt 

To tamper here with some poor sovereignty, 

Belike republic called, the paltry prize 
Of liberators and dictators, each 
Mad to usurp his turn of brief misrule, 

And vex his time the victim of his lust— 

An endless line I seem to see them rise, 

Of ever worse succession—sequel sad, 

Unutterable, burlesque and irony 
Of that which was — of that which might have 
been, 

Much more, nay is, or is, we trust, to be, 

Since still thou art, O State, and still, though 
changed, 

Art whole and one, survivor of such ills ! 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


164 


That thou art such as now thou art, and not 
Forever such as late thou wert too long, 

That land foreboded, rent with civil feuds, 

Nay, drenched, worse boding, with fraternal blood— 
Thank him, thank Webster chief among thy sons, 
Thy sons so many noble, chiefly him. 

These all loved thee, but he more wisely well, 
Foreseeing farther, therefore differently, 

And differently devising for thy weal. 

Good patriots all alike they were, O State, 

And lovers true of Freedom, mete them praise, 
Their equal meed, full thanks and reverence due. 
Bestow, stint not, they stinted not for thee, 

Thou happy mother, rich in generous sons : 

To thank their generous sons is thrift for states. 

So always Webster taught and practiced ; praise 
To render, to receive, was his delight, 

Such the childlikeness of his rich warm heart. 

Late now, but praise him as of yore though late,— 
Praise fits this master in the art of praise ! 

Adams and Jefferson, in fate and fame 
Equalled by that conjunction in their death— 

With what majestic eulogy those twain 
He fixed as stars of a new Gemini 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


165 

In the clear upper sky with Washington, 

And with what joy rejoiced and bade rejoice 
To hail them there, celestial auspices 
Joined to the clustering constellated light 
Of the kind heavens above our country bent, 

Fresh beams to guide and cheer our walk beneath ! 
His praise was such that praise from him was fame. 
His father’s fame, his brother’s too, is this, 

Simply that Daniel praised them. How, amid 

The jubilant acclamation loud that once 

Hailed him in sudden chorus round the world 

Defender of the Constitution, how 

Did that affectionate heart to kindred true 

Miss from the song the hushed voice of his brother J 

It was his childlike weakness to love praise, 

But love with praise he hungered for like food. 

But praise, they say, at last corrupted him 
Degenerate from his first simplicity, 

Touched him austere with pride and loftiness, 

(His very greatness making him less great,) 

Hindered those frugal manners which had graced 
Such greatness, and as pattern borne fair fruit— 

Not so, believe them not, they saw amiss : 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


1 66 

Miscalled it pride, his scorn of popular arts ; 
Hardness miscalled that sad sincerity 
Of wisdom weary to have taught in vain ; 

Miscalled it spendthrift and luxurious sloth, 

That open purse, that unconcern to thrive ; 

Light reck of due, unheeding hand and bond 
Miscalled that all-engaging negligence 
And habit of improvident delay, 

Born of upright intention sure of self, 

Joyful good will, and utter trust of friends. 

The wronged great, sad, sincere, and simple heart! 

Nay, what if he herein had erred indeed, 

And those forsooth had gleaned a little flaw 
Of less than perfect manly in the man ? 

Sure, to such public virtue private fault 
Not sordid, and so small, might be forgiven ! 

More to abhor, abhorrent more to truth, 

Lies foully fit to that soft social heart 
And genial warmth of vital temperament, 

The tales they forge of reason, conscience, will— 
That reason, and that conscience, and that will!— 
Through sensual appetite sold into shame : 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


167 


Shame that had been a tragedy of shame ! 

And shame that should, for me, abide not hid, 

Full shown, a blot of contrast boldly black 
Against the clear large splendor of his fame. 

Still, mother State, and though the hideous lie 
Were hideous truth, still, I would plead forgive, 
Blame, but forgive, nor cast the shadow wide, 
Making it one eclipse to darken all. 

But pity and forgiveness proudly spare ! 

Simple and pure, though faultless not, yet pure, 
Even to the end thy grave great son remained. 

Heed thou them not that bid thee wail him fallen ! 
No spirit fallen and reprobate and lost 
Inhabiting a body ulcerate 

And sapped and foul with sins of sense, the man 
Who still in reft old age could overmatch, 

Repeating them, those miracles of his prime, 

Twice wrought, O State, for thee, and twice postpone 
Thine imminent doom ; postpone, but not avert 
The inevitable ! Yet to postpone was much, 

And saved thee—from thy fate it could not—through 
Thy fate, beyond it, and despite. Full soon 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


168 

It came, the inexorable hour, and found 
Thee ready, not too ready, to receive 
The dreadful guest with meet return of grim 
Abrupt fierce salutation, eye to eye. 

XIL 

O the magnificent firm front of fight, 

Sportive and firm, as joyful with the joy 
Of youth and strength presaging victory, 

Which he that earlier fateful day opposed, 

Single, to the whole phalanx of thy foes! 

A gallant chieftain led them on, with gay 
Audacity, and festive challenge flung, 

To tempt the adversary. The august 
Repose with which that adversary took 
Unmoved the shock of onset haply seemed 
To them deceived, insensibility 
Or dull capitulation to defeat ; 

Not, what it was, the tranquil rest of power 
At ease supping refreshment. Came betimes 
Full undeceiving. Roused, at length, self-roused, 
He moved and muttered thunder. Musical 
And low that prelude, but it boded storm. 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


169 


Storm lingered and the lovely lightning played 
Some space gently and terribly its lithe 
And lambent beautiful wild play, while yet, 

Lulled in the cavernous bosom of its cloud, 
Dreamed the reluctant thunderbolt asleep. 

It woke and on the wings of lightning flew, 

Legion its name, and all the sky was fire. 

Revealed within his lightning, there he stood, 

The thunderer stood, and chose from out his 
store 

Of thunder, piled huge tiers, all moulds, 

Thunder alive, each bolt, and each awake 
Now, and uneasy, eager to be sped. 

From these, with leisurely celerity 
His missile messengers he chose, and charged 
Them to make haste. Already they had flown : 
Unhooded, from that dread right hand they flew, 
They fled, they fell, falcons of fire, and found 
Their quarry slain with terror ere with wound. 

At last one farewell long melodious roll 
Of boltless thunder mellow with remorse 
And pathos for his country, and he ceased : 

Clear sky again and cheerful sun in heaven. 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


170 


Those foes discomfited were thine, O State, 
Thine, therefore his, and therefore overthrown. 
A fruitful fateful hour it was for thee, 

For him glorious, and well with glory crowned. 
Yet glory more he merited, and more 
Costly to him, nor gainful less to thee, 

When after, all the flush of youth retired, 

And that unanimous auxiliar hope 
And sympathy of his fellows which before 
Buoyed him elate upon the billowy breast 
Of popularity, a rising tide— 

This absent, and proposed to him the dire 
Necessity of seeming for a time, 

To some pure spirits intense, false to the plight 
And promise that he swore with younger lips 
To Freedom — yea, and it being moreover 
dark 

And doubtful whether all were not in vain 
To do or suffer for a cause foregone— 

He yet stood and withstood for thee, O State, 

O Union, and for thee forbore his fame : 

For thee, O Union, stood, nor less for thee, 

O Freedom, since thou Freedom wast 
By Union, and not otherwise, to thrive. 


WEBSTER : AN ODE . 


171 


So then this strong vicarious spirit strove, 

Not one brief hour of uttermost agony, 

Dreadful and swift, but days, and weeks, and months, 
Of inexhaustible patience and slow strength, 

For us, and greatly stood, until he died 
But did not fall. Unfallen he died, nor fell 
Dying, nor yet being dead was fallen but stood. 
Throughout, and to the end, and on beyond 
The end, and endlessly, he stood—and held 
These standing both, Union with Liberty, 
Inseparably one, upright and safe : 

The toiling elements tugged at him in vain. 

XIII. 


Fixed, like the pole, 

He stood, whatever moved, 

As if, though sole, 

The shock to take, and break, it him behooved. 

The shock he broke ; 

The multitudinous main 
Its waves awoke, 

Woke all its waves, and stormed the rock in vain. 


172 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


To join the waves, 

The mustering winds went forth 
From all their caves, 

Against him, West and East and South and North. 

The spinning void 
Of whirlwind humming by 
In its cycloid, 

Paused, on that seated strength its strength to try. 

And the floods came : 

Deep called to deep aloud 
Through the great frame 
Of nature, ’twixt the billow and the cloud. 

And deluge rolled, 

From pole to pole one tide, 

Waste as of old, 

And weltering shouldered huge against his side. 

The thunderbolt, 

As when that Titan world 
Rose in revolt, 

Hot through the kindling air amain was hurled ; 


WEBSTER: AN ODE . 


173 


And, whence it slept, 

Like a swift sword unsheathed, 

The lightning leapt, 

And round him its fierce arms of flame enwreathed. 

The rending throes 
Of earthquake, to and fro, 

From their repose 

Rocked the perpetual hills, or laid them low. 

And still he stood— 

For the vexed planet still, 

Created good, 

Was whole, and held her course, and had her will. 

Around him cloud, 

Pale spectre of spent storm, 

Clung, like a shroud, 

And veiled awhile the inviolable form. 

But umpire Time, 

Serenely wise and just, 

With slow, sublime, 

Unalterable decision and august, 


74 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


Cleansed this away, 

And lo ! the glorious front, 

In candid day, 

Resumed, with solemn joy, its ancient wont. 

On the grave face 
Pain suffered and subdued 
Had worn the trace 

Of woman’s passion and man’s fortitude. 

But other years, 

In lengthening pilgrim train, 

Came, and with tears 

Wept out of thankful and remorseful pain, 

Touched each deep score 
That furrowed cheek or brow, 

Forevermore 

To majesty become pathetic now. 

And men said, See ! 

This thunder-blasted form, 

For you and me 

Fain once to take the fury of the storm— 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


175 


Is it not fair ? 

Come, cluster round the feet, 

Doubt not but there 

Still to the mighty heart our praise is sweet. 

XIV. 

Forgive, O State, 

Forgive me, that I dare anticipate 
That which shall be ; 

Clearly I see 

Emerge the crescent of his fame from its eclipse : 
The dawn is here, 

And how shall I refrain my lips 
From singing of the sunrise seen so near, 

So near, so dear ? 

He knew eventual wisdom with thee lay, 

And, trusting thee with a prophetic trust, 
Well brooked to hear the hounds of faction bay 
Confusing thee against him to their lust. 

He loved thee, State, with self-postponing love : 
At length, through him, at leisure to be just, 
Pronounce, I pray, 

To-day, 


176 


WEBSTER: AN ODE. 


Thy late ‘Well done,’ 

Well won, 

Upon thy son,— 

Late, but full-voiced and penitent, above 
His dust. 


xv. 


Who boldly had begun, thus softly ceased : 
Meek with his joy to deem the dawn increased. 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE . 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 

JULY 4, 1892. 


I. 

Mighty by thy domain, 

My country, wide outspread — 
Mountain, and sea-like plain, 

And lake, and river-head 

Pushing the plenteous tide 
Through all the great degrees 
From slopes of northlandside 
To gulfs of southern seas, 

With, east and west, a reach 
Of continent full-spanned, 
From the Atlantic beach 
To the Pacific strand — 

How sittest thou a queen 
And empress of the earth, 
Thine oceans twain between, 
Since thy prodigious birth ! 


1/8 TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


II. 

A thousand leagues apart, 

On either side thy seat, 

Two lieges and one heart! 

These kneel and kiss thy feet. 

O lady of the lands, 

O mother land to me, 

Yet lift I praying hands 

And pray one prayer for thee : 

That, as by empire great, 

Thou fair by virtue grow, 

One right, exemplar state 
Far-shining white as snow! 


hi. 

The treasures of the mine, 
The silver and the gold, 
The aeons of sunshine 

Within thy bosom rolled — 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE . 


179 


Huge hoards of heat and light, 
Black light and frozen heat, 
In seams of anthracite 
Laid all in order meet; 

Or liquid in sunk lakes 
And Amazons of oil 
Whose overfulness breaks 
In fountain through thy soil; 

Or else to ether spun 
Which upward with desire 
Yearns to its parent sun 
And touch of native fire; 

One force through many forms, 
A slumbering Proteus deep, 
Potent of booming storms 
And dreaming them asleep, 

But so awaiting still, 

Long-lulled Titanic power, 
The signal from His will 
And the elected hour, 


8o 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


To rouse, to start, to spring, 

New energies unfurled, 

The future’s lord and king, 

And re-create the world — 

These wealths and powers, O State, 
In count and in degree 
Beyond computing great, 

Thy God has showered on thee 


IV. 

These, and an earth that teems 
What harvests ! every growth, 
Hath sunk beside thy streams 
The Lord of Sabaoth. 

And sons and daughters thou, 
Brave hearts and cunning brains, 
Hast lacked not, lack’st not now, 
To multiply thy gains. 

Yea, like a heaven thick-sown 
With stars, thy glorious past, 
With great traditions strown, 

Its light on thee has cast. 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


181 


V. 

The clustered names set there, 
Bright in a clear renown, 
That, from their station fair, 
Shed choicest influence down ! 

Statesmen ; and patriots pure; 

Souls dedicate from youth 
To do and to endure 
In soldiership for truth; 

White ardors of desire 
Lit from the Holy Ghost, 
Descended flames of fire 
And tongues of Pentecost; 

Men who themselves forgot 
To love and serve their kind, 
Loss, labor, counting not 
One broken heart to bind; 

And poets, laureate brows, 

And heavenly-visioned eyes, 
With song to soothe or rouse 
Commissioned from the skies. 


TO THE REPUBLIC : AN ODE. 


182 


VI. 

O land thrice fortunate, 

What auspices are thine ! 

What welcoming smiles from fate, 
And beckoning hopes benign! 

But, dowered so rich and strong, 
Omens so prosperous met 
To cheer thy steps along, 

Rejoice with trembling yet! 

O rescued from such stead — 
Twice, first and second birth ! — 
And forth so fairly sped 
In sight of all the earth, 

As on a great career, 

Endless, proposed to thee, 

One filial fear I fear, 

Thou, wilt thou worthy be? 

VII. 

Wilt thou count wisdom wealth? 

Wilt thou count pureness power ? 
Hold a sound conscience health? 
Choose righteousness for dower ? 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE . 


1*3 


Wilt thou scorn grasping greed? 

Hate overreaching lust? 

Be merciful to need? 

Fast true to tryst and trust? 

Not from i-hy western shore 
The pilgrim turn away — 

Thou, who, in time of yore, 

In Massachusetts Bay, 

Or up the river James, 

Thyself a pilgrim then, 

Sought’st refuge, suffering shames 
And wrongs from froward men! 

VIII. 

Purged, with the hyssop dire 
Of war, from slavery’s stain, 
Wilt thou — with sword and fire 
Not visited in vain — 

Rid thee of bondage worse, 

That bondage which enthralls, 
With its close, clinging curse, 

The soul of him that falls 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE . 


Under its damning spell, 

His body, yea, but soul — 

Present and future hell 

Kindled to burn him whole ! 

ix. 

That arson such as this, 
Incendiarism of men! 

Flagrant from the abyss, 

May thrive, must we again 

Cringe to the old-time lash 
Swung by the new-time power 

At every deep-cut gash, 

Fondle or cringe and cower ? 

They, not with gain content, 

Our hucksters of hell-fire, 

To rule and government 
And spoils of place aspire. 

Or, if themselves not kings, 

As lief, kingmakers they — 

Like Saturn, with their rings 
And satellites to sway! 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


85 


Henchmen, that serve their need, 
So each may serve himself, 
Insatiate all in greed 
Of office or of pelf, 

They batten on our blood 
To gross and grosser crime; 
Trample us in the mud; 

Besmother us with slime. 

Oh, while some breath we draw, 
Ere yet quite choked our speech, 
Thou, mother of the law, 

To thee one cry we reach ! 


x. 

Wilt thou this foul offence 
Utterly from thee put — 

One blast, and blow it hence 
Powdered beneath thy foot ? 

Soon? For it upward winds, 
The wily serpent bold, 

Round thy throat surging binds 
Its anaconda fold. 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE . 


It spawns its hydra kind, 

Voracious reptile brood 

That swim the sea to find 
Sufficient human food. 

America, my land ! 

Thou, sevenfold swathed in light! 

Oh, Africa ! Our hand 
To deal thee such despite! 

XI. 

Thy silence is august, 

My country, while I plead; 

But I, because I must, 

Firmly beseech thy heed. 

If thou wouldst choose to love 
God, and the Devil hate, 

Fix thy regard above 
And bidding thence await — 

How, with majestic ease, 

In unperturbed repose, 

Confusions, anarchies, 

All parasitic foes, 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


1 87 


Whether within thee bred, 

Or whencesoever brought, 

Thy going forth should tread 
Unconsciously to nought! 

And, safe from thine own self, 
What fear of other foe ? 

Thy Ghibelline and Guelph, 

None else, can work thee woe. 

For, peace within thy heart, 
Sword never needst thou draw, 

Menace from foreign dart 
Thine eye should overawe. 

XII. 

But, O my land, beware! 

Not confidence of strength, 

And not imperial air, 

Secures thee strong at length. 

Like mausoleum vast 
And silent sepulchre, 

The abysses of the past 
Embosom and inter 


188 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE . 


Nation on nation hurled, 

Strict doom and sentence just! 

To that dark underworld 
Of nothingness and dust. 

Those, howsoever great, 

For that their virtue failed, 

Might not prolong their date, 

But perished unbewailed. 

Thou, O my nation, more 
Than any nation blest, 

Bethink thee, I implore, 

Nor perish like the rest! 

Well by my prophet heart 
Know I that if thou rise 

Buoyed equal to thy part, 

Nor thy birthright despise, 

Then nothing great or high, 

That nations can, will be, 

While the world’s time runs by, 
Impossible to thee. 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


189 


XIII. 

And now, my land, elate 
With hospitable cheer, 

Thou, greeting so this great 
Quadricentennial year, 

Feast to the ear, the eye, 

And the all-curious mind, 
From under every sky 
Purveyest for mankind. 

Beyond the Olympian games 
To Panhellenic yore, 

Beyond all names and fames 
Of festival before, 

In the mid-continent, 

Betwixt the subject seas — 
The curtains of thy tent 

Kissed by the lakeside breeze 

And stretching large and high, 
For amplitude of span 
Like an inferior sky, 

To show what builders can — 


190 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 

Thou biddest to thy doors 
The nations of the earth; 

Wide as thine ocean shores 
The welcome of thy hearth ! 

XIV. 

And prosper well thy will, 

Thou youngest of thy peers ! 

Thy chance to thee fulfil 

Thy hopes, this year of years ! 

Yet would I wish my land, 
Herself, herself, to be 

The wonder noblest-planned 
Her sisters here should see. 

For action ready-girt, 

But equal to repose; 

As who, at need alert, 

The strength of quiet knows. 

Her sabbaths she should guard, 
Between the roaring weeks, 

Mirrors of peace unmarred, 
Whate’er to mar them seeks. 


TO THE REPUBLIC : AN ODE . 


191 


So dwellers by the main 
Watch well the sacred wall 

That fences home and fane 
From floods that threaten all! 

I see her sit at rest, 

Fair brow and folded hands; 

Sweet fear of God expressed; 

A lesson to the lands ! 

xv. 

Be beautiful, my queen, 

One day amid the seven 

With that detached, serene, 
Uplifted look to heaven, 

And that hushed heart to hear, 
Majestically meek, 

With an obedient ear, 

What God the Lord will speak; 

Which fairest makes the fair, 

As with a halo round 

Her forehead and an air 

Of heavenly-minded crowned. 


192 


TO THE REPUBLIC: AN ODE. 


O artist, mould me so 
One image of my queen ! 

I shall behold her glow 

In more than mortal sheen. 

On her will seem to pour 
Transfigurement complete; 

The sweetness awful more, 

The awfulness more sweet, 

She, in such attitude, 

Such high unworldly mien, 

Shown with a soul endued 
Ennobling thrice the queen ! 

XVI. 

As I have loved thee dear, 

My country, taught from youth, 

Loved, love thee, and revere, 

With love that loves the truth, 

So, sovereign mother, bear, 

Chide not thy son, I pray, 

That I thus boldly dare, 

On this thy natal day. 


THE SPAJV/SH SOLDIER'S FAREWELL. I93 


THE SPANISH SOLDIER’S FAREWELL. 

[“ Soldiers of the American Army : We would not be fulfilling our duty as 
well-born men in whose breasts there live gratitude and courtesy should we 
embark for our beloved Spain without sending to you our most cordial and 
good wishes and farewell. . . . You fought us as men, face to face and with 
great courage. ... You have given honorable burial to the dead of the van¬ 
quished ; have cured their wounded with great humanity ; have respected and 
cared for your prisoners and their comfort, and lastly, to us, whose condition was 
terrible, you have given freely of food, of your stock of medicines ; and you have 
honored us with distinction and courtesy, for after the fighting the two armies 
mingled with the utmost harmony. 

“ From 11,000 Spanish soldiers. 

“ Pedro Lopez de Castillo, Soldier of Infantry. 

“ Santiago de Cuba, August 21st, 1898.”] 


A comrade’s hand in parting! for comrades now 
are those 

Who late in bitter battle were met as mortal foes. 

You have subdued us doubly; in arms you over¬ 
threw, 

Then when we were your captives, you conquered 
us anew. 


13 


194 THE SPANISH SOLDIER'S FAREWELL. 


You had fought us fair like foemen, and not like 
skulkers base; 

You took your equal chances and dared us face to 
face. 

The test of danger proved you, you were as brave 
as we; 

And braver than Castilian need never soldier be. 


But after you disarmed us, then came the test of 
tests — 

Who might have been your prisoners you made 
your welcome guests. 


You fed us of your bounty, our wounds you soothed 
and healed, 

For us your Red-Cross heroes explored thefoughten 
field. 

Thanks and good will, O brothers, from hearts that 
overflow 

We pour you out in tribute, as homeward hence 
we go 


THE SPANISH SOLDIERS FAREWELL. 195 

To Spain our well-beloved, our longed-for, mother 
Spain, 

Sped thither at your charges across the swelling 
main. 

There we will tell our fellows, “Americans are 
men ! 

And may we henceforth never cross swords with 
them again! ” 

Such farewell message send we your far-stretched 
lines along — 

A host of loyal Spaniards eleven thousand strong. 


196 THE CRY OF THE PHILIPPINES . 


THE CRY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 

1. 

O throned by the sunset, thou nation of the free, 
Canst hear what we in chorus, we islands of the sea, 
From round the globe are saying and praying now 
to thee ? 

Thy God has made thee mighty, we learn has made 
thee kind, 

O bid us not unlearn it, or, scarce less bitter, find 
That but to our entreaties thou wilt shut up thy 
mind. 

We are a scattered people, about the ocean strown 
As if the winds of heaven to hurricane had blown, 
And wrecked a vast armada and we were saved 
alone. 

Our seats are but the salvage from some sunk 
continent 

Of immemorial ages, when tameless forces pent 
Within the planet’s bosom found here volcanic vent. 


THE CRY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 197 

Thou, from a blend of races, the noblest 'neath the 
sun, 

Together mixed and melted, and in fresh matrix 
run, 

Art nobler yet than any, and out of many, one. 

Thou own’st a wide dominion from east to west 
outspread, 

No island in an ocean —a mainland huge instead 

By two great oceans bounded, with endless rivers 
fed. 

Oh, hearken yet, we pray thee, thy majesty un¬ 
bend, 

From thy far height above us benignly con¬ 
descend, 

And to our supplication an ear indulgent lend. 


ii. 

Unnumbered generations our fathers here had 
dwelt, 

Contented, though benighted, for bounteous Nature 
dealt 

Unstinted satisfaction for every want they felt; 


198 THE CRY OF THE PHILIPPINES . 

Till came the Spaniard hither, three hundred years 
ago, 

The omnipresent Spaniard who, dread of friend and 
foe, 

Then spread his conquering ensign wherever breezes 
blow. 


The Spaniard came and found us—the Spaniard, 
he they knew 

In Spain as Torquemada, in Holland Alva, who 
In Mexico was Cortez, Pizarro in Peru! 


With his right hand his standard he planted on the 
shore; 

In his left hand for emblem a crucifix he bore, 

Whereon One seemed to suffer as if in anguish 
sore. 

He said he brought us Jesus, who, matchless tale 
to tell, 

Had died as there we saw Him to save our souls 
from hell — 

It was a lie he told us, we after learned right well. 


THE CRY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 1 99 


For though be true the story that Jesus suffered so, 

And suffered so to save us from burnings there 
below, 

No crucifix of Spaniard meant that for us, we know. 

Nay, he had brought a symbol, whereby in lively 
show 

To set in view before us the destiny of woe 

Should suffer from the Spaniard our archipelago. 

hi. 

Cycles of crucifixion ! Say, have they not sufficed ? 

O generous western nation, be by thy heart enticed 

To end at last our torment, and by the heart of 
Christ! 

Almost released already, surely we cannot be 

Given back by our deliverer — America, by thee ! — 

Prey of the sullen Spaniard, to glut his cruel glee. 

Cuba and Porto Rico long wore the Spaniard’s yoke, 

They sank to earth beneath it, but one resounding 
stroke 

From thee, puissant nation, that dreadful bondage 
broke. 


200 THE CRY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 


Are we so much less worthy? So much our 
miseries less? 

Or is our voice too alien ? Too distant our dis¬ 
tress ? 

Yea, would there were a nearer on whom our plea 
to press! 

Than thee there is none other, none other near or far, 

To be a savior nation, and, where the oppressed are, 

There reach them with salvation across whatever 
bar. 


IV. 

O fame unique of nation — to be herself at rest 
Within her own fair borders, yet ever keen in quest 
Of outrage to be thwarted, of wrong to be redressed ! 

Is that too fond a fancy, a dream of fame too fine, 
For steady public judgment and common sense 
like thine? 

At least wilt not thou welcome occasion for a sign ? 

And is it not occasion, when fortune intervenes, 

As now in the Pacific, with startling martial scenes, 
To bring to thy disposing us trembling Philippines? 


THE ANSWER OF THE REPUBLIC . 201 


THE ANSWER OF THE REPUBLIC 

(BEFORE SHE HAD CROSSED THE RUBICON.) 

The passion of your cry has pierced to me 
And stung my heart to pity that is pain; 

Pity for you, O islands of the sea, 

But for the oppressor anger and disdain. 

Through all my blood a fever and ferment 
Of indignation fierce against your wrong 
Runs, like a running fire within me pent, 

And burns its way leaping my veins along. 

But with your cry are mingled many more 
As piteous, hither sent from diverse lands; 

They storm my ears, that their insistent roar 
Nigh dins me deaf to all save their demands. 

Whom shall I answer, when so many call ? 

What hands see first, of all stretched out to me ? 
Ought I to succor any unless all ? 

And all to succor can my portion be ? 


202 THE ANSWER OF THE REPUBLIC. 


Do ye sigh listening, O sad Philippines ? 

Averse from you seems reason sage to draw? 
Nay, but sage reason only intervenes 
With warning due to heed her holy law. 

Still reason herself enjoins me to discern 
A difference where indeed a difference lies ° 

It were a crass improvidence to spurn 
Occasion true if true occasion rise. 

So, though I thus, in my considering mind, 
Dwell in a doubt and balance of the best, 

Be of good cheer, and trust ye yet to find 
Your savior in the Regent of the West! 


EVEN YET. 


203 


EVEN YET. 

“ But I appeal! ” So, after sentence heard, 

Said one to Philip on his judgment-throne. 

“To whom?” astounded at the audacious word, 
Asked the proud monarch, menace in his tone. 

“ From Philip drunk to Philip sober! ” he 
Firmly replied, and by his firmness won. 

Will now my mighty mother country be 
Indulgent toward the boldness of a son, 

Who dares even yet implore her to revise 
Her counsels in this crisis of her fate ? 

Will she not listen to herself more wise, 
Weighing and doubting, ere it be too late? 


‘ Strong am I, yea — but is my heart so pure 
That I can safely, with good hope to speed, 
Become knight-errant nation, and endure 
Whatever hardship for whatever need ? 



204 


EVEN YET. 


* Would that I were indeed so pure in heart! 

Then might I hope to be so calmly wise 
That I could dare assume such glorious part, 

A championship that all should recognize. 

‘ Perhaps, perhaps — long years of waiting hence, 
Waiting, and high endeavor, and purged aim — 
Aim purged of mean ambition and pretence — 

I might aspire thus nobly without blame. 

‘ A nation wise, beneficent, and just, 

From sinuous ways and selfish purpose clear, 
An umpire nation that all nations trust, 

A potent nation that all nations fear — 

‘ These in one nation, and that nation I — 

The summit of ideal and the crown! 
Something it is to have conceived so high ; 

Ah, to achieve that arduous fair renown! 

‘ Nay, tempt me not; I am not worthy, wait; 

I must not too audaciously aspire; 

Let me become myself a blameless state, 

Fine gold thrice born from the refiner’s fire. 


EVEN YET. 


205 


‘ So I, not as if grasping at mine own, 

With usurpation rash in flattered pride, 

But, like a sovereign welcomed to his throne, 
Unenvied to my seat of power might ride. 

‘ Though, were I such a nation, and my peers, 
Were my p$ers such as to salute me such, 
And, taking counsel of no jealous fears, 

Acclaim me to a place that meant so much — 

‘ Would there be longer need of such a power 
To mediate among nations and make peace ? 
Who will desire, for his defence, a tower 

Of strength and refuge, when oppressions 
cease ? 

‘ Meantime, until that golden day shall dawn 
Of universal justice and good will, 

Were it not well for me to bide withdrawn 
From all their jars and conflicts, strong and 
still, 

‘ And be one nation among nations free 

From sordid greed of gain at other’s cost, 
Equal to rapine, as all men might see, 

Yet never once with thought of rapine crossed; 


20 6 


EVEN YET. 


‘ The image of a meek and mighty state, 
Pacific power majestic in repose, 
Breathing, with air as confident as fate, 
Serene, secure unconsciousness of foes ! ’ 


WHAT DOEST THOU? 


207 


WHAT DOEST THOU? 

My country, what doest thou ? 

Long ocean leagues away 
Sending thine armies now 
To harry and to slay! 

The slayers, too, are slain ! 

Our brave young soldiers, they 
Are not exposed in vain 
To danger night and day — 

Worse danger than of death 
At outraged foeman’s hands ! 
Danger from branding breath, 
Which, in those distant lands, 

Wide-open pits of hell, 

Around them everywhere, 
Fiend-fed and fuelled well, 

Vomit into the air! 


208 


WHAT DOEST THOU? 


Strange women — O my land, 
Seen and approved by thee ! 

Sign of thine own right hand 
Attesting them to be 

•Worthy our gallant boys, 

All in the flower of youth, 

To lead by foul decoys 

Down the decline from truth, 

From purity, from health, 

Through ways that never miss, 

However hid in stealth, 

Their end in the abyss ! 

And, bribe to brothel, broth 
Of Hell’s own damned brew. 

Potation red and wroth, 
Presented by her crew — 

This, underneath the folds 
Old Glory to the breeze 

For the beholding holds 
Of our antipodes! 


WHA T DOEST THOU? 


209 


These see thee, O my land, 
Commending to thy sons, 

Yea, mixing with thine hand 
For those that hold thy guns 

The cup thou knowest full well 
Body and soul destroys 
Together both in hell — 

Such drench thou givest our boys ! 

Waging a wanton war 

Against the Philippines — 

Against them, as if for ! — 

This, this, is what it means! 

And but one little part, 

Scarce heeded, have I shown 
Thus of what now thou art 
Doing in yonder zone. 

Beware, my land, beware! 

Sure thou the virtue hast; 

To stay thee who would dare? 

Stay thou thyself at last! 


14 


210 SPEAK OUT\ 0 MOTHER MINE/ 


SPEAK OUT, 0 MOTHER MINE! 

O, my beloved land, 

I challenge thee this day, 

A loyal frank demand, 

And hearken thou, I pray. 

A scattered island folk, 

Alien and far from thee, 

Late as to life awoke 
In longing to be free. 

The tyranny of Spain 

They hated and abhorred; 

Against her sullen reign 
Intrepidly they warred. 

Then — sudden — mighty news ! 

The Warder of the West 

Had roused her slumbering thews 
And on the tyrant pressed, 


SPEAK OUT ,; 0 MOTHER MINE! 211 


Warning her, “ Thou no more, 

O too long suffered Spain, 

On this Atlantic shore, 

Shalt lengthen out thy reign.” 

And Cuba leapt to life, 

Life, gift of Liberty, 

She hailed an end of strife 
With power beyond the sea. 

She bade her sister isle 
Beside her in the main, 

Look up in hope and smile, 

Secure of kindred gain. 

And Porto Rico smiled, 

She laughed, she clapped her hands 
With Cuba, that such wild 
Rejoicing shook the lands. 

This heard the Philippines, 

And they exulting said, 

“ Yon shouting surely means 
We, too, may lift the head, 


212 SPEAK OUT ,; 0 MOTHER MINE/ 


“ At last, at last, and live; 

Who can enfranchise thus 
Will stay not till she give 
Enfranchisement to us ! ” 

O, generous mother land, 

Wilt disappoint such hope ? 
Hast thou not ever planned 
To widen Freedom’s scope, 

To set the world alight 
With one example high, 
One glorious beacon bright, 
Illuming all the sky ? 

Speak out, O mother mine, 
Say, “ Lo, ye Philippines, 
No longer need ye pine 

That ill your fortune leans ; 

“ I stay, I stay, my hand, 

Late heavy laid on you, 
Henceforward understand, 
And hold my promise true, 


SPEAK OUP i O MOTHER MINE! 213 


“ Ye shall your right divine 
To be a people, free 
From alien meddling, mine, 

Or whosesoe’er it be — 

“ That right ye shall enjoy, 

My open faith I pledge 
To fend you from annoy, 

Yea, though at battle’s edge, 

“ Till, many perils passed, 

O, long down-trodden, ye, 
By being free, at last 

Grow worthy to be free! ” 


214 


IT IS NOT ALL TOO LATE . 


IT IS NOT ALL TOO LATE. 

Bethink thee, O my land, 

What is it thou hast done ? 

Didst thou well understand 
What task thou hadst begun ? 

Wherein had they wronged thee, 
Those Filipinos far, 

That thou shouldst cross the sea 
To hunt them where they are, 

Shouldst them “ insurgents ” call — 
Only because, forsooth, 

Perhaps considering all 
Thyself didst in thy youth, 

They, fain to do likewise, 

Thy precedent invoke, 

In Freedom’s name arise, 

And spurn the foreign yoke ? 


IT IS NOT ALL TOO LATE . 


215 


What, O my land, I ask, 

Answer me, what was this ? 

Engaged in such a task 

Didst fear not History’s hiss ? 

Yet cheer thee, mother mine, 

It is not all too late, 

Joy, it may still be thine 
To be a Christian state — 

A Christian state indeed, 

Ready to hear, to halt, 

To ask thyself with heed, 

Was I perhaps at fault ? 

Nay, nobler triumph yet, 

As far as that may be, 

Wrong steps retrace, and let 
All thy repentance see. 

Their country in such act 
Of fair behavior seen, 

Which naught of Christian lacked, 
Or beautiful in mien, 


216 


IT IS NOT ALL TOO LATE. 


Full many sons of thine, 

Nor thy least loyal they, 

Would rise in reverent sign 
Of pious love, to say: 

“ O far the noblest now, 

Loveliest, most august, 

That aureole round thy brow 
Worn only by the just 

“ When they the bribe refuse 

Which pride propounds to power, 
And instead greatly choose 

Pure righteousness for dower — 

“ Yea, thou the queenliest art 
Men ever thee beheld, 

Thus by thine own high heart 
To nobleness compelled. 

u Always we knew thee great 
By a surpassing dower, 

Thine beyond any state, 

Of riches and of power; 


IT IS NOT ALL TOO LA TE. 


21 7 


“ But how this attitude, 
Magnanimously meek, 

False foolish pride eschewed, 
Doth finer greatness speak ! ” 

Pronounce thou then the word, 
Swear that it fast shall stand, 
Loud, let it far be heard, 

And clear, from land to land. 

Say, “ O ye Philippines, 

No longer shall ye wait, 

One able intervenes 
To help you be a state, 

“ Mistress of her own way, 
Unhindered and undriven, 

So as to be such, may 
Be to a nation given! ” 

Let but those islanders 

Know that thou meanest this, 
They, silenced all demurs, 

Thy garment’s hem would kiss, 


2 l8 


IT IS NOT ALL TOO LATE 


In glad surcease of fears, 

And docile would implore, 

With flowing grateful tears, 

Wisdom, from out thy store 

Of wisdom dearly bought, 

To guide aright their way, 

While thou shouldst fend from aught 
That threatened to waylay. 

Speak, speak, O country mine, 

And end the long suspense, 

Sure of the wise, benign, 

High will of Providence ! 


A VANISHED VOICE. 


219 


A VANISHED VOICE. 

J. A. B. 

Oh, well-beioved voice! Never to be 

Heard in our councils ! Hence forever flown ! 
No more that haunting pathos in the tone 
To witch us with its wistful melody! 

Nay, but the voice it was not. It was he, 

Himself, the man, the Christian, therein shown: 
The regal pride not driven from its throne, 

But chastened to a high humility; 

The opulent sweet worldly wisdom, blent 
With such clear innocence of worldly guile; 

Learning, to service of his fellows lent; 

The gift of sympathy in tear or smile; 

The upward vision on the heavens intent — 
These were what won us with resistless wile. 


220 


SURVIVAL. 


SURVIVAL. 

The stately stature, stooped from its just height, 
Like a tall wheat-stalk heavy with ripe grain, 
And meekly bearing all its golden gain; 

The long, strong step, elastic, springing, light, 
As of one joyous on the pathway right; 

The clear, keen eye, yet kindly, which all pain 
Of cunning to cajole were waste and vain, 

But wherein often tears could dim the sight; 

The rich, sweet, suasive voice, its organ tones 
Not such as surge down the cathedral aisle 
With ocean in the music of their moans, 

Their secret rather subtly to beguile, 

With mastery none now left among us owns, 
Puissance sheathed in soft, seductive wile — 

Though these things all to the remembering eye 
Live, or in hoarded echo haunt the ear; 
Themselves, alas, they are no longer here, 


Bfe 



* 















SURVIVAL. 


221 


Nor elsewhere, gone forever and ever by — 

Like wreaths of vapor melted from the sky — 
No future theirs reserved in any sphere! 

Yea, but what they were sign of, the sincere 
High spirit they meant to us, he did not die; 

The man, our friend, be sure is living still, 
Untouched by death or change, save to be more 
Nobly himself, emancipate from ill; 

Wearing indeed, on yon ideal shore, 

That perfect fashion of the Perfect Will 
We sometimes deemed he here already wore. 


222 A SABBATH , A MORNING , AND SPRING. 


A SABBATH, A MORNING, AND SPRING. 

i. 

A morning, a sabbath, and spring! 

Conjunction of seasons how meet, 

Auroral and vernal, that sing, 

With sabbatic, in symphony sweet! 

How the floodtides of green overrun 
The places of earth that were bare! 

How the planet leaps up to the sun ! 

How she leans to be wooed by the air! 

T is the touch of the spring to her heart; 

She feels the youth of the year, 

Flushing in, give her pulses a start 
As while yet her creation was near. 

What a balm in the breath of the breeze, 
Flowing fresh from the lips of the flowers, 
Kissed on plants and on shrubs and on trees, 
As if blown from world other than ours! 


A SABBATH, A MORNING , AND SPRING. 223 


And the cool that attempers the balm! 

For the breeze dipped its wings in the dew, 
Which it shook into sheen from the calm 
And the white of the night, as it flew. 

Then the brilliance of shadow and light 
From the level soft luminous streams 
Of the sunshine liquidly bright, 

Mazy twinkle and sparkle of beams! 

*Tis the mirth of the morning and May; 

May and morning to Nature fill up, 

With elixir thus blithesome and gay, 

And thus overflowing, her cup. 

How is it I cannot but feel 
Deep into a joyance like this 
Some spirit of difference steal, 

To chasten, not lessen, the bliss ? 

The sense of a sabbath is here, 

Like a heard benediction from heaven: 
u Lo, as spring is the crown of the year, 

This day be the crown of the seven ! ” 


224 A SABBA TH, A MORNING , AND SPRING. 


II. 

O Spirit Creator, that I 

Might share the revival of spring! 

That my heart’s barren places and dry 

Might know the quick brood of Thy wing! 

Thou, Sun of my spirit, return 

From thy sojourn too long in the south! 

Bring shower, bring warmth in thine urn, 

And banish my winter and drouth! 

Let me leap into leaf, into bloom, 

Let me cover my shame with attire 

Such as grows over any in whom 
God’s will is creative desire ! 

And morning ! O morning to me, 

Sun of Righteousness, rise thou and shine! 

Chide the shadows of night that they flee, 
And flood me with daylight divine! 

Yea, and sabbath ! O sabbath indeed, 

Peace of God possessing the breast, 

Antitype of that sabbath decreed 

Which now laps the fair earth in this rest, 


A SABBATH , A MORNING , SPRING. 225 


Bend over, sink into my soul ! 

Be peace from the fume and the fret 
Of ambition, of pride, of the whole 

Sordid brood of the thoughts that beset 

Our self-seeking with anguish; be peace 
From remorses tormenting in vain; 

Be from fearful forebodings surcease, 

And sufficing nepenthe for pain ! 

So, sabbath and morning and spring 
Within, as without me, shall meet, 

A happy conjunction, to sing 
Together their symphony sweet. 


*5 


226 JOHN GREEN LEAF WHITTIER. 


JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

Sweet pastoral poet born, bridegroom of calm; 
The quiet eye his gift, the brooding heart, 

To charm from nature with no pain of art 
The music of an idyll or a psalm 
Soft to the sense like some mellifluous balm 
Inflowing; pleased, but only pleased in part, 
With pleasure that from beauty mere could 
start, 

Still happiest waving worship’s holy palm ! 

By instinct such, half dreamer and all saint, 

“ To arms ! ” he heard the battle-trumpet call. 

No pause. Peace-lover, he, without complaint, 
Answering, “ I come ! ” forthwith abandoned all 
That had been his delight, and did not faint, 
Warring, till he beheld dire slavery’s fall. 
























OUR STAR-BESTUDDED SKY. 


227 


OUR STAR-BESTUDDED SKY. 

Oh, what a heritage is thine, 

My country, of exemplar names, 

Prolonging an illustrious line 
And noble fellowship of fames! 

With the great name of Washington, 
Benignant lucency and bright, 

The fair succession was begun, 

And all thy future filled with light. 

About him in thy firmament 

Were clustered kindred radiant spheres 

Whose constellated splendors sent 
A track of glory down the years. 

Soon a new stately sign men saw 
Assume its station in the sky; 

Image of justice and of law, 

John Marshall, ermined, sat on high. 


223 


OUR STAR-BESTUDDED SKY. 


Then Webster, with his domelike brow, 

His patient, grave, majestic air; 

In him an Atlas seemed to bow 
And on his Titan shoulders bear 

The total fabric of the State; 

With knees that trembled not he stood 

Beneath the ever-growing weight, 

In meek and mighty fortitude. 

Though whom he saved misdoubted him, 

Him traitor called who patriot was, 

He never let his lamp burn dim 
Of fealty to his country’s cause. 

Translated to the upper sky, 

In those ethereal spaces, far 

Above the clouds of calumny, 

He burns his lamp a lustrous star. 

What friendlier orb than all is this, 

That from a nearer heaven beams down 

Such warmth with light, such home-felt bliss, 
And comfort in a good renown? 


OUR STAR-BESTUDDED SKY. 

Beloved Lincoln, it is thou; 

This broad and equal flush benign 

Shed over all our pathway now — 

It is, it could be, only thine. 

Shine on, in thy pathetic light 

Tender and sweet with martyrdom 

Yet cheerful with that humor bright 
Which buoyed thee up to overcome! 

From out a star-bestudded sky 

Thus splendid with immortal beams, 

What rain of gracious influence high 
Distils into this nation’s dreams! 

Fair future surely hers, whose past 
Has been endowed so rich and fair; 

O young inheritors, hold fast 

Your treasure, nor deface it dare! 


229 


230 


REQUIESCIT IN PACE . 


REQUIESCIT IN PACE. 

A. T. 

BEFORE THE BURrAL. 

We will not weep, nor wail, nor beat the breast, 
But sit in silence, with bare, bowed head, 

A world-wide fellowship, about our dead, 

The great dead, lying in this solemn rest, 

Utter, eternal, and such sense expressed 
Of having done with mortal doubt or dread, 
Or chance of being by hope disquieted ; 

With last surcease of whatso passion blest! 

But nay, O friends, we err conceiving so ; 

This marble image of majestic calm 
Not pause even hints in the aeonian flow 
Continuous of the music of that psalm 
Which shall his life above, as late below, 

Be, timed to worship and the waving palm ! 



r .ay'-j 





















PA TIENCE / 


231 


PATIENCE! 

O soul of mine, in earthly body pent, 

Art therein exercised with anguish sore? 
Fret not thyself with foolish discontent, 

And hasty wish to suffer so no more. 

Know that no pang not needful tortures thee; 

Thou art not perfect yet to be full born; 
^ime’s chrysalis, meant for eternity, 

Well in some pain may wait her natal morn ! 


2^2 SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE. 


SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE. 

AN IDYLL OF FRIENDSHIP. 

S. A. E. 


I. 

Of all the comrades of my youth 
None braver, purer none, than he; 
Lover and liver of the truth ; 

The stay he was, the cheer, to me! 

The happy days when we were young 
And lived together, he and I! 

The songs the poets for us sung! 

Our fellowships of ecstasy ! 

Solemn theophanies descried 

In sunsets and in breaking morns 
Woke in us thoughts of noble pride, 
High exultations, glorious scorns. 




















SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE. 233 


Each was to each as living law 

That bade us aught unmeet despise, 

And but with purifying awe 
Dare look into a lady’s eyes. 

Those flush young years ! That joy far more 
Than ever once we dreamed was ours! 

We sat together on the shore 

And launched our ventures, crowned with 
flowers. 


11. 

Bared to his being’s inmost core 
He was to me, beneath my eye 

Tried by each searching test twoscore 
Relentless years had leave to ply. 

Thus even as mine own soul I knew 
This brother of my soul so long; 

That sacred past I now review, 

To feel that I should do him wrong, 

Yea, and myself, not to avouch 

I never saw him stoop toward base ; 

I never saw him cringe or crouch 
When danger stared him in the face; 


234 SANS PEER ET SANS REPROCHE. 


I never heard him utter word 

Foul as from fountain foul within, 

Lightly, nor yet by passion stirred, 

Once dare the rash profaner’s sin. 

Nay, but I never heard him breathe 
Thought, fancy, motive, aim, desire, 

Whim howso passing, pitched beneath 
The key to which pure hearts aspire. 

Of native reverence all compact, 

He before God and his Lord Christ 
Bowing him lowly, little lacked 
Of perfect— if right will sufficed ! 

Brave cheerful soul! Of glad good will, 
Full, overflowing current free, 

Flushed from that First Great Fountain still 
Of all good will to you and me. 

hi. 

Why is it that he seems so nigh, 

Though indeed infinitely far 
Withdrawn from reach of ear or eye 
Irremeably beyond Death’s bar? 


SANS PE UR ET SANS REP ROCHE. 235 

Is it because he really is 

Nigh me, even nigher than of old ? 

Or because he such part of his 
Own very self I may behold 

Behind him left here for a while, 

Incarnate in that true sweet wife 

Who him so long with woman’s wile 
Charmed, and became his life of life ? 

She did not part my friend from me; 

Rather she was between us bond 

To bind him mine in faster fee 
And fairer fellowship more fond. 

O elect lady of his love 

And of his lifelong loyal plight, 

Thou here below, he, though above, 

Yet is not wholly lost to sight! 

I at least see him, seeing thee — 

So much a living part dost thou, 

Of him I knew, still seem to me, 

Remembering all, as I do now. 


236 


A COMRADE . 


A COMRADE. 

A man he was of open cheer 

Who bravely, blithely, bore his part; 

Not merry, but a sound, sincere, 

Wholly companionable heart. 

You did not have to watch his moods, 

He always met you frank and fair, 

His face alight, no interludes 
Of overclouded aspect there. 

Ever amenable he was 

To influences good and sweet, 

Yet stanchly for the righteous cause 
Stood, were there need its foes to meet. 

If friend perchance in battle closed 
With him, a certain suave and bland 

Complaisance in him half disposed 
That friend to ease his stern demand. 


A COMRADE. 


237 


And he was of a humor apt 

For laughter; in a round of jest 
No sharer more intent and rapt 
Or of more sympathetic zest. 

You never of such comrade tired, 

He did not cloy you with too much; 

Oh, nay! But how have I desired, 

Since, of that hand but one more touch! 


238 


A PUD SE IPSUM. 


A PUD SE IPSUM. 

AT NINETY-FOUR. 

I. 

Four-score and fourteen years 
Spent as a tale is told ! 

How brief the span appears, 
And I how soon grown old ! 

Drawn now so near the goal, 
The final goal unseen, 

Solemnly say, my soul, 

How faithful hast thou been? 

I dare not trust what they, 

My children, bribed by love, 

Will of their father say 
My true desert above. 

They with each other vie 
In vain to credit me 

With all those virtues ! I 
Must not deluded be. 


APUD SE IP SUM. 


239 


So search, my soul, thy past 
And bring me thence the truth; 

Age should escape at last 
The illusions fond of youth. 

Along the lengthening track 
Steep narrowing to the start, 

Turn, gaze inquiring back — 

How have I borne my part ? 

The truth will me condemn, 

But I the more shall crave 

To touch that garment’s hem 
One touch whereto can save. 


11. 

Full many a step astray 
These truant feet have trod 
From wisdom’s narrow way, 

The one right way of God ; 

In many an idle word, 

Speech seasoned not with salt, 
This wayward tongue has erred 
Entangling me in fault; 


240 


A PUD SE IP SUM. 


My eyes have ranged, like fire 
Wind-blown and running free, 
And levied with desire 
On things forbidden me; 

These itching ears full oft 

Have edged their sense to hear, 
Not the true word breathed soft, 
The heavenly word brought near, 

Oh, not that still small voice, 

The Spirit’s voice within — 

Alas, and of my choice, 

Confused in passion’s din ! — 

Rather the speech that soothed 
My pride and my self-will, 

Or false before me smoothed 
The enticing pathway still. 


hi. 

I have had hopes, how fair! 

Fair blossoms for no fruit; 
None, or such fruit they bare, 
Better had been no fruit. 


A PUD SE IP SUM. 


24I 


I will not say that life 

Has brimmed my cup with joy; 

Labor and sorrow rife 
And trouble and annoy, 

Instead, have been my lot 

From childhood even till now; 

Long moil and little got, 

Scant wage, much sweat of brow. 

Yet God, of His great grace, 
Lodged in me at my birth, 

To ease a heavy case, 

Such buoyancy toward mirth, 

That, if I wept salt tears, 

Salt scalding tears in shower, 

As the dew disappears 
They vanished in an hour. 

I cannot praise His name 
Enough, my Maker, who 

Attempered so my frame 
To bear me cheerly through. 

16 


242 


APUD SE IP SUM, 


IV. 

Yea, and the wife He gave, 

Who gave herself to me, 

To me and mine — such brave, 
Wise, strong, true woman she ! 

Three-score years long she bode 
Beside me in the strife, 

Sharing with me the load 
And battle-brunt of life. 

“ Faint, yet pursuing,” still 

The watchword from her lips, 
Wounded, but not in will, 

Down to death’s slow eclipse, 

She kept her high heart firm 
Through every sore assay, 
Knowing nor bound, nor term, 
Nor obstacle, to stay 

The indomitable force 
Within her that impelled 
This spirit on her course, 

And steadied and upheld. 


A PUD SE IP SUM. 


2 43 


Yet thus, before her peers, 
Erect and resolute, 

She, meek with many fears, 
Before her Maker mute, 

Her hand upon her mouth, 

Her mouth laid in the dust, 
As a faint land in drouth, 
Whose only strength is trust, 

Patiently waits for rain, 

So for God’s mercy she 
Devoutly in her pain 
Athirst put up her plea. 

Would she were with me here, 
That I might tell her now 
With what outpoured sincere 
Thanksgiving tears I bow 

Before her God and mine, 

And worship and adore 
The matchless grace divine 
That, treasuring up such store 


244 


APUD SE IP SUM. 


Of impulse high in her, 

From out all men chose me 
To feel that instant spur 
And somewhat worthier be 

Well, I in hope will pray, 
That, since I may not here, 
I there where she is may 
Pour it into her ear. 


v. 

O you, ye children all, 

Whom such a mother bore, 
In her dear name I call 
Upon you and implore, 

Trust ye in her Lord Christ, 
And her Lord Christ obey! 
Who her alway sufficed 
Will you suffice alway. 

And this, my children, deem 
Your father’s dearest claim, 
Most worth, to your esteem: 
Himself essayed the same. 


THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM. 


245 


THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM. 


1. 

From above the plains of Bethlehem, on a night 
of long ago, 

In a burst of heavenly singing, to a tune that 
angels know, 

Fell the notes of an evangel sweet on listening 
ears below. 


Glory be to God,” the chorus, “ glory in the 
highest,” sang — 

Clearer than terrestrial voices those celestial 
voices rang — 

Peace on earth to whom He loveth.” Hushed 
the nations’ battle-clang! 


246 THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM. 


Then was made a new beginning, and the old 
things passed away, 

All the ancient reckonings vanished, and men 
dated from that day 

Whatsoever had been earlier, whatsoever future 
lay. 


Such a birth that night in Bethlehem heralded the 
angel choir — 

Lowlier than the lowliest other, than the highest 
other higher, 

Hope of Israel long expected, and the waiting 
world’s Desire! 


11. 

What a grace was brought to childhood when the 
Lord was born a child ! 

How, as if for every mother, beamed a benediction 
mild, 

When her Babe from out his cradle to the mother 
Mary smiled! 


THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM. 247 

Thou, 0 bounding heart of boyhood, hoard, with 
holy miser’s joy, 

The fine gold of one example where no fire can 
find alloy — 

Triumph in bright hope, remembering once there 
lived a Sinless Boy! 


Who that toils in daily taskwork, foot, or hand, or 
heart, or brain, 

But may feel his task ennobled with a sense of 
heavenly gain, 

Thinking, “ His hand swung the hammer," “ His 
hand urgent shoved the plane"? 


hi. 

Art thou weary ? Is the burden that thy life doth 
on thee lay 

Overheavy for thy shoulder? Dost thou faint 
along the way? 

Think of Jesus on the well-curb sitting worn at 
noon that day. 


248 THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM. 


Art thou tempted ? Does the leaguer of the Wicked 
press thee sore ? 

At the point of yielding art thou ? Ready to 
resist no more ? 

Faint heart, cheer thee ! He once for thee all the 
Tempter’s onsets bore. 


Persecutions dost thou suffer? Has the world con¬ 
spired thy foe ? 

Do the lips of men revile thee ? Loud their blasts 
of scorning blow ? 

He the Highest, He the Holiest, worse than thou 
was wounded so. 


IV. 


Hast thou bowed thee hopeless, weeping where a 
lost beloved slept ? 

Deep and deeper grew the shadow that upon thy 
spirit crept ? 

Hadst forgotten how that He once at the grave of 
Lazarus wept — 


THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM . 


249 


Wept, but after, with a mighty voice before the 
open tomb, 

Called aloud and summoned Lazarus forth from 
that sepulchral gloom 

To the light of life re-orient, and the beauty, and 
the bloom — 


Then how, at the feast they made Him, Lazarus 
sat with Him a guest ? 

Shall not so at length thy loved one, risen at his 
Lord’s behest, 

Sit at banquet in the heavens, leaning on the 
Saviour’s breast ? 


v. 

Art thou haunted with misgivings, with forebod¬ 
ings dire of doom, 

Shapes and shadows that before thee on the far 
horizon loom, 

In thine ears prelusive mutter as of threatening 
thunder-boom ? 


250 THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM . 


These, advise thee, are foretokenings, such hand¬ 
writing on the wall 

As once made Belshazzar troubled on his helpless 
wizards call — 

How therewith the Hebrew prophet did the mon¬ 
arch’s heart appall ! 

Sin it is within thee seated, clamoring loud for 
punishment, 

Like the blood of righteous Abel by the murderer 
brother spent, 

That would not without its vengeance rest within 
the ground content. 

To herself the soul is prophet, warns herself of sin 
beware — 

But no fellowship of feeling owns the Man of Cal¬ 
vary there! 

He was sinless, that for sinful He might all the 
burden bear. 

And He bore it, to the utter end of all the bitter need, 

By obedience to his Father through a life of lovely 
deed 

To that death in blood redemptive by the will of 
God decreed. 


THE BIRTH IN BETHLEHEM. 


251 


VI. 

Weighing what the Lord was born to, while we 
celebrate his birth 

Let us chasten our rejoicing, let us hold a solemn 
mirth, 

In a sympathy of travail till anew be born the 
earth. 


252 


KNIGHT-ERRANT. 


KNIGHT-ERRANT. 

J. H. B. 

Knight-errant of the gospel of the grace 
Of God, wielding no weaponry but love, 

Yet wearing on his love-illumined face 
A presage shed upon it from above 

Of victory surely his serenely won — 

Like Michael’s, with no ruffle on the brow, 

For in the heart no hate, misgiving none — 
Over foe conscious he must yield him now! 

Such he our brother. And robe too to him 
His love was, weapon-proof, of panoply, 

Bright heavenly mail no earthly damp could dim 
More than pure sunshine can polluted be, 

No densest impact dint, no keenest blow 
To vital wound pierce or divide agape, 

More than divided, pierced, or dinted so 

Can the air be that clothes the planet's shape. 










KN/GHT-ERRA NT. 


2 53 


His love was hope unquenchable by fear, 
Unquenchable by need of waiting long — 

He there at least would triumph if not here, 

And his heart here took up the triumph-song. 

And strength his love was; for omnipotence, 

Is it not one with love ? since God is love, 

And God as love, to him, was fountain whence 
Love as strength poured abundant from above. 

And love in him was joy; wherefore rejoice, 

O ye that loved him, for that loving life 
Was living joy — joy fuller since the Voice 

Bade him hence thither radiant from the strife! 


254 


A CHARACTER. 


A CHARACTER. 


G. D. B. 

Large-minded and great-hearted; loyal friend ; 
Master of all amenity and grace, 

Yet capable of scorning what was base 
With a serene severity to send 
A thrill of pleasure to the pulses’ end, 

A sympathetic flush into the face, 

Of any noble who might chance in place 
Hearing to such severity to lend; 

Brave, manly, gentle, gentle-manly, sweet, 

He had his arch, appealing, childlike ways, 

At times, as if of helplessness complete, 

And he was amiably fond of praise, 

But fond not less of praising, as was meet — 
Peace-lover and peace-maker all his days! 





THE SILENT TRIBES . 


255 


THE SILENT TRIBES. 


“ Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, our 
life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory: mortify, therefore, 
your members which are upon the earth.” — New Testament . 


I. 

The silent tribes of the chrysalides 

Wait in their secret cells the winter long; 

They blindly know the sun, through slow degrees 
Returned at last, will give them wing and song. 

Closely so housed, each in his tenement, 

That wraps him fast about in fold on fold, 

They darkling brood prophetic discontent, 

And wait to feel their chrysalis unrolled. 

Nor idle wish nor barren discontent 

Nurse they; but ever with auxiliar strife 

They make them ready for the bright event 
Of their escape into the nobler life. 


256 THE SILENT TRIBES. 

Their folded pinions fledged for upward flight, 
Their voices eager for the burst of song, 
How will they welcome the awaited sight 
Of the great sun, life-giver to their throng! 


11. 

So, sons and daughters of the living God, 
Chrysalides of a celestial hope, 

Who, pent within an earthly body, plod, 

And doubtful in this present darkness grope, 

Remember that your Sun will soon return, 

That glorious Sun with whom your life is hid; 

Remember and rejoice, while yet ye yearn 
To see Him come indeed his heavens amid. 

Hasten, O Bringer of our life to us, 

Life of our life, and Fountain of our light! 

Lo, we await, in our long winter thus, 

Spring in the touch of Thy reviving might! 

We hear and we believe that when at last — 
Then when at lastThou, Christ, our life, art here, 

All shame to us, all shadow, overpast, 

We with Thyself in glory shall appear. 


THE SILENT TRIBES. 


257 


Patience of hope we nourish till that day, 

But task ourselves the while to put to death 
The members of this body of decay, 

The lusts and passions which must cease with 
breath, 

That, with divine affections changed and new, 
With heavenly-minded aspirations fair, 

We may betimes for Him ourselves endue, 

And ready be to meet Him in the air. 


258 


H. B. M. 


H. B. M. 

A noble front announced a noble mind; 

A gentle face bespoke a loving soul; 

Calmness and strength from sober self-control, 
Courage with childlike winningness combined, 

The instinct and the habit of refined 

High thought and purpose reigning through the 
whole 

Race that he ran — till, touched the final goal, 

His footsteps left that luminous track behind ! — 
These traits of what he was to us abide 
A memory most pathetically dear; 

But in us they are potent spur beside, 

Enabling impulse rather, to climb near 
Attainment of such virtue purified 

As was in his example shown us here. 















PERHAPS. 


2 59 


PERHAPS. 

What angels brought Messiah cheer 
From his own native heaven, 

When, fasting in the desert drear, 

He had with Satan striven ? 

Which angel was it strengthened Him 
When, in Gethsemane, 

Amid the olive shadows dim, 

He wrought for thee and me? 

Perhaps those selfsame angels now 
Are sometimes earthward sent 
Where over-laden pilgrims bow 
Beneath their burdens bent. 

Then up, my heart, be strong and brave! 

Think thou what angel may, 
Commissioned from the Lord to save, 
Beside thee walk this day! 


26 o 


THE WOUNDED FRUIT-TREE . 


THE WOUNDED FRUIT-TREE. 

A little Eden fair with fruitful trees 

The garden was where I was used to walk; 

There, vocal in the breathing of the breeze, 
Sometimes unto my soul seemed God to talk. 

But never spake He with a word that went 
Searching more deep into the core of me, 

Than when once, sore with secret discontent 
At baffled hopes, I sought my favorite tree, 

And found it bleeding from the gardener’s hand, 
With a wide wound as to its very life: 

“ Why, why is this ? I do not understand 

Such ruthless wantoning with thy cruel knife ! 

“ The goodliest tree of all that flourished here, 

O gardener, thou hast wounded to its death; 

The genial promise of how many a year 
Defeated see! ” I cried with hasty breath. 


THE WOUNDED FRUIT-TREE. 


261 


Aye, a well-favored tree it was in sooth, 

Rare pleasure to the eye to look upon; 

From the first springing of its lusty youth, 

I have admired it through the seasons gone, 


Trusting the yearly prophecy of fruit 

That burst and bourgeoned in its shapely 
growth 

Fed through the leaf and fattened from the 
root — 

To touch it with my knife too weakly loth. 


Yet ever has it been but leaves it bore, 

Leaves, or but blossoms that no fruitage 
brought, 

As if of life it had too plenteous store, 

And with mere lustihead were overfraught. 


So I have cleft it as thou seest it cleft, 

To wound its crown of pride, but not to 
kill; 

Enough of life to live, and more, is left, 

And thou will see it yet its end fulfil. 


262 


THE WOUNDED FRUIT-TREE. 


“ For, all as if no more for self alone 

Contented just to flourish out its day, 

It will serve pleasure other than its own — 

Its power to work not waste in spendthrift 
play.” 

So spake the gardener; but within his voice 
A voice not his spake to my inmost soul; 

“ Cleave, cleave me, Lord,” I said, “ I shall 
rejoice 

To bear thee better fruit wounded than whole ! ” 


BECAUSE OF THE ANGELS. 


263 


BECAUSE OF THE ANGELS. 


“ Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to do service for the sake of 
them that shall inherit salvation ? ” — New Testament. 

The stately angels of the Lord, 

Sent forth to do his will, 

For us in heavenly watch and ward 
A ministry fulfil. 

Oh, miracle of love and grace! 

That heaven to earth should bend, 

And beings of angelic race 
On human steps attend. 

Lord, make us know how blest herein 
We ransomed sinners are, 

And for the angels’ sake may sin 
Still more from us be far. 

Let our dear brethren of the skies 
Behold that reign of love 
On earth beginning, which their eyes 
See whole in heaven above. 


264 


EHEU! 


EHEUl 

M. C. T. 

A sweet, a gracious soul! Humane, urbane ; 
Mirror of gentleness and frank good-will; 

Alert and blithe love’s office to fulfil; 

Whatever disillusion cost him pain 
(Since promise fair is sometimes promise vain!), 
To all fair promise hospitable still, 

Instinctively averse from thinking ill, 

Yet wise with wisdom kept by humor sane. 

A home of noblest purposes, his mind ; 

With breath of ample aspiration swelled 
To that large measure; and to all refined 

Choices by conscience as by taste compelled — 
What lovely spirit late has left mankind 
To be in fonder long remembrance held ? 









PARABLE. 


265 


PARABLE. 

Two crossed the sea together, 

One willing and one loth; 

The chances of the weather 
Befell the same to both. 

The selfsame vessel bore them, 
They there were like bestead — 

The selfsame port before them, 
They thither like were sped. 

One took his fortune cheerly, 
Hoping and trusting still; 

The other ever drearly 
Foreboded something ill. 

Both reached the haven whither 
They both set out to sail; 

But of his voyage thither 
Each told a different tale! 


266 


WILLIAM CULLEN BEY A NT. 


WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 

Gentle in spirit as in mien severe; 

Calm, but not cold; strength, majesty, and grace 
Measure, and balance, and repose, in clear 
Lines, like a sculptor’s, graven on the face — 

Such image lovers of his verse have learned 
To limn their poet, peaceful after strife; 

A statue, as of life to marble turned ? 

Nay, as of marble turned to breathing life. 








A BAPTISMAL HYMN. 


267 


A BAPTISMAL HYMN. 

Rejoicing to obey, 

Beloved Lord, behold, 

In Thine appointed way, 

With holy boldness bold, 

Above the fear of men, 

Thought of their praise above, 
Unconscious of all ken 
Save of the Lord we love, 

We hither come to do 
The bidding of Thy will, 

Thy blest example too 
To follow and fulfil. 

O Spirit, who as dove 

On Christ baptized came down, 
Descend from heaven above 
And our obedience crown ! 


268 


SELF-JUDGED. 


SELF-JUDGED. 

As, let the lode-stone, sinking, near a mass 
Of flinty sands with motes of iron mixed, 
Those iron motes will instant upward pass 
Fast on that tractile surface to be fixed, 

While the dull sands, unconscious of appeal 
From that which drew their neighbors upward 
Inert and cold, no stir of life will feel, 

No leap of love, to lift them from below: 

So, when the Lord, incarnate from above, 
Moves among men, Immanuel drawing nigh, 
Some loyal souls elect, alert with love, 

And buoyant with endeavor toward the high, 

Spring to His side, feet winged with eager will, 
And, with delight of love their being stirred, 
Plight themselves His, allegiant to fulfil 

His least behest, and trembling at His word; 


SELF-JUDGED. 


269 


But other souls, alas, their nobler mind 
With mortal chill of worldly torpor numb, 
Know not their day of visitation kind 

Sudden and swift—and unreturning—come! 


270 


HEIRSHIP. 


HEIRSHIP. 


“ They shall reign forever and ever.” — Revelation. 

Once, to a Greek philosopher of fame, 

A famous Macedonian monarch wrote: 

“ Sage, that my time of living is the same 

With thine, I count good fortune worthy note. 

“ For now the heir to my ancestral throne, 

The youthful prince, my son, from thee may 
share 

That wisdom which belongs to thee alone — 

Lo, I commit him to thy forming care.” 

Then, to a kingdom greater than he guessed, 
Wise Aristotle bred the unconscious boy; 

The lordship of the world, from east to west, 
Was Alexander’s doom of grievous joy. 


HEIRSHIP. 


271 


Teacher, to thee, descending from on high, 
Hearken, a voice from heaven’s Eternal 
King: 

‘ Behold, deem thou that in that pupil I 
Under thy hand an heir to empire bring. 

‘ Train him to sway a sceptre mightier far 

Than ever proudest earthly king could boast, 
To be a conqueror more than conquerors are, 
Through the Lord Christ, and by the Holy 
Ghost! ” 


272 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD . 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 


“ Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 
him.” — Psalm. 

“ The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” — Psalm. 


I felt the burden of the universe 

Oppressive, like a nightmare, on my breast; 
The whole creation groaned beneath the curse, 
And my vicarious spirit found no rest. 


ii. 

I had gone forth light-hearted to the fields, 

The pleasant fields that stretched about me nigh, 
There to drink in the joy that nature yields 
To whoso brings the ready ear and eye. 

It was the jocund season of mid-June; 

The moment was full blossom of the dawn; 
Within me, and without me, into tune 

With gladness all the fresh young world was 
drawn. 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD . 273 


As once those sons of God, so birds in choir 
Shouted for joy over the new-made earth ; 

The boughs beneath them shook to their desire 
To pour in singing all their matin mirth. 

The flowers, the grasses, and the bright green leaves 
On shrub and tree, in orchard or in wood, 

With spray and tendril on the vine-clad eaves, 
Made merry and pronounced creation good. 

The peaceful kine that in the pastures grazed 
And deep their nostrils dipped into the dew, 

Took pleasure in their calm way unamazed, 

While all wild things seemed happier than they 
knew. 

The insect tribes that round me everywhere, 

With various motion timed to various sound, 

Swam the wide ocean of the lucid air, 

Inspired a sense of joyance without bound. 

HI. 

Such had the world that morning seemed to me — 
One thronging scene of triumph in delight — 

And my quick heart had joined the general glee, 
When suddenly a contrast struck my sight. 

18 


274 THE secret of the lord. 

Amid the glisten in the sun and dew 
Of silver spangles in the grasses spread 

By the deft spinner spiders’ artful crew, 

Hung what my mind to darkened musings led. 

There a winged insect, full of eager life, 

And full of life’s solicitude to live, 

Where, gay in the gay revel round him rife, 

He took the good his bounded term could give, 

I saw entangled in the meshes fine 
Of a snare woven by a spider’s skill; 

Already round his pinions was the twine 

Fast folded, that would break at length his will. 

But his will yet resisted, and he fought 
With desperate futile fury to win free; 

I watched bim, and he was so fierce, I thought, 
This time the victim will the victor be! 

But nay, alas, his strength to strive gave way ; 

The strenuous limbs that vainly beat the air, 

And found no foothold firm whence, turned to bay, 
He might contend on bettered terms more fair, 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 275 

Ceased struggling; the divided body lithe, 

That with contortion fruitless to and fro 

Persisted long to wrestle and to writhe, 

Doubling upon itself — if haply so 

It might the mouth, with barbed fang equipt, 
Bring into grapple with the wary foe, 

Or, failing that, the tail, with dagger tipt, 

Enable to strike home a venomed blow — 

That flexile body, stayed its strain and stress, 
Turned still and stark, as stiffened in despair; 

Then on the vanquished, held in his duress, 

The vanquisher, from his suspended lair, 

Dropped with sure aim, and in the helpless head 
A secret, subtle alchemy infused, 

Instinctively his victim’s mortal dread, 

Such as his crafty kind have ever used, 

To make quite certain that their prey desired 
Is safely theirs, fast in the clutch of death; 

Blithely that spider then above retired, 

And there at ease and leisure drew his breath. 


276 THE SECRET OF THE LORD . 


IV. 

And this great world, I said, of God’s, I know 
Is thronged with scenes of wretchedness like this; 
The show of joy it wears is but a show, 

All, all, a frightful mockery of bliss! 

I look around me, and I still behold 
One spectacle repeated everywhere 
In living pictures, endlessly unrolled, 

Many, but all of misery and despair; 

God’s creatures all on one another prey; 

One suffers that another may enjoy; 

That other then the sufferer’s part must play — 
Rapine, an endless round, the world’s employ ! 

Not only in the orders and degrees 

Of creatures that we count below our kind, 

But in our own kind, the dazed vision sees 
Commutual havoc and embroilment blind. 

The weak are made the victims of the strong; 

The simple by the wise are made to serve; 

Right is forever underfoot of wrong, 

And there are none that have what they deserve, 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 


277 


Whether of good or ill. The wicked go 

Unwhipt of justice; yea, are throned and crowned 
Often for that they work their fellows woe, 

And cast their righteous neighbor to the ground. 

The nations war with one another; earth, 

Red with the reek of slaughter round her globe, 
Reels like a drunken man in madcap mirth, 

With human bloodshed wrapt as with a robe! 

Drought, blight; famine,and plague, and pestilence; 

The hurricane’s world-overwhelming wing; 
Shipwreck; black skies with tempest burdened, 
whence 

Fierce to their aim fell vollied lightnings spring; 

Deluges, conflagrations, burstings dire 
Of lava from the torn volcano’s breast, . 
Wasting wide regions round with floods of fire; 
The avalanche, that from the mountain’s crest 

Descending in steep cataract of snow 
And ice, buries whole villages of men 
Securely slumbering where they had below 

With homes, hard-won by labor, filled the glen; 


278 THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 


Upheavals of the sunken ocean-bed 

That high the waters heap along the shore, 

And over towns and cities there outspread 
Resistless tidal inundations pour; 

Earthquakes, that seem vast continents to shake, 
Or, opening awful chasms into the deep 

Interior of the underworld, swift take 

Whole Lisbons down to Hades’ donjon-keep; 

Sudden subsidences of continent 
That let the ocean in upon the main 

Thence to reclaim what long before he lent — 
And helpless hands to heaven upstretched in 
vain ! 

v. 

By cosmic forces of destruction such 

Mankind in masses are hence instant hurled; 

But silent forces, of insidious touch, 

More wide-spread misery worse, wreak on the 
world. 

Old age creeps on and seals the senses up, 

And makes the chilling blood move loth and slow; 

Disease meanwhile has filled the wretch’s cup 
With bitterness brimming to overflow. 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 279 


Bereavement, disappointment, hope deferred 

Making the heart sick, hope fulfilled, worse 
chance 

Ofttimes — misfortune eagerly incurred, 

And blindly, by poor fools of circumstance ! 

Death, and the fear of death with love of life 
Contending in the sore-divided breast, 

There still fomenting such ferment and strife, 
Well-nigh were welcome hope in death of rest. 

Despite the love of life which all that live 

Are doomed to from the moment of their birth, 

How many fain from life are fugitive, 

Seeking deliverance by escape from earth ! 


VI. 

O God, O God, what art Thou, Who didst call 
From naught this dreadful universe of Thine ? 
Thou, Who mightst not have made the world at all, 
Or other far have cast its whole design ! 

O God, O God — nay, is there God indeed ? 

Do we not mock ourselves to dream there is ? 
We need one, yea, but would the God we need 
Own world like ours for handiwork of His ? 


280 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 


How is God good, while mighty, too, and wise, 
Yea, even all-wise, all-mighty, and all-good ? 

How can He be such? His creation cries, 

“ He cannot! ” be her voice but understood ! 

VII. 

Creation dinned my ears and deafened me 
With her blaspheming cry in sense of wrong; 

My brain was crazed to neither hear nor see — 
Hark, I did hear — as if a secret song. 

It pierced the hideous discords of that cry 
With melody incredible how sweet! 

It sang and said: “ Lo, listen, it is I, 

I hide myself, yet him who loves me meet, 

“ Meet, and with me in my pavilion hide; 

There mayst thou safely rest and be at peace. 

Nothing can harm thee whilst thou there abide, 
And there those dismal dissonances cease. 

“ Cease, but nay, rather are to song transposed, 

A soft and soothing lullaby to pain; 

Jehovah’s secret there to thee disclosed, 

Thou never needst to woe awake again. 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 


281 


Against the clamors of the world, believe 
That, as a father pitieth his child, 

Him with false promise never would deceive, 

Or to vain hope once let him be beguiled, 

So the Lord pitieth those who fear His name, 
Those who His children would accounted be; 
He formed them, and He knoweth well their 
frame, 

In their afflictions all, afflicted He! ” 


VIII. 

A strange, sweet gospel, to be hither borne 
In still small singing from so far away! 

May it be trusted ? Then were they that mourj 
Blessed, despite their troubles of a day ! 

But whence the singing ? Though so sweet the 
song, 

I will not trust its gospel, till I know 
Who gave it to the singer ages long, 

Long since, to be by him sung hither so. 


282 THE SECRET OF THE LORD . 

It was not this great dreadful world — which 
then, 

As now, as ever, was full-stored with woe; 
Nay, the world never, never gave to men 
Hint that its mighty Maker pitied so. 

No poet buoyed on Pegasean wings 

Rose ever to commanding height so high, 

Or took so widely in the sum of things, 

As in such sense to sing and prophesy. 

Because beyond belief, it must be true, 

Because above all reach of human thought 
To think it, and to hold it for a view 
Possible in a world so sorrow-fraught! 

Yea, yea, God gave it to that singer old, 

And tuned his voice to chant it on to us — 
None other, God himself, the secret told, 

Told in a music that could charm me thus. 

Blessed be God, who says He pities grief; 

Blessed be God, that I believe it true. 

Yea, I believe, Lord, help mine unbelief! 

Lest my faith fail, my fainting faith renew! 


THE SECRET OF THE LORD. 283 


Forgive me such half-unbelieving cry! 

And that great word from God attested so, 
When on the cross the Lord of life could die, 
In God’s last proof of pity for our woe ! 


IX. 

The burden of Thy universe, O God, 

The gospel of Thy pity helps me bear; 

But never, till I sink beneath the sod, 

Nor after ever, when, arisen from there, 

I, the great ages of eternity 

In cycle upon cycle see revolve, 

May I, however wiser grown to be, 

The problem of Thy universe resolve. 

Then let me in humility believe, 

Humility, with gratitude and joy — 

Believe the more, since I cannot conceive — 
That Thou didst all Thine attributes employ, 

Thy goodness, as Thy wisdom and Thy power — 
Possessing each in infinite degree, 

Employedst them all together in the hour 
Thou didst command Thy universe to be. 


284 THE secret of the lord. 


Eternal scope for adoration pure, 

Where understanding is forbidden me! 
That once Thy pity did through time endure, 
Forever reason for adoring Thee! 


x. 

Be swift, my soul, begin adoring now! 

Bow down before Him who now pities thee ! 
Exult, for thou shalt yet before Him bow 
Adoring, from all need of pity free! 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 285 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 

1. 

O thou, the most victorious soul 
That ever quickened human clay — 

Eyes always fastened to the goal, 

Feet always instant on the way — 

Tell me the secret of thy power 
To do, to suffer, and prevail; 

Whence hadst thou thine exhaustless dower 
Of force incapable to fail? 

How didst thou overcome the world ? 

Why was it that not all the weight 

Of all those woes upon thee hurled 
Could thy high heart of hope abate ? 

Why was it that not all the shame 
That evil-minded men might hiss 

From tongues of scorn upon thy name 
Could taint the fountains of thy bliss? 


286 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


Why, that disease indeed could break 
Thy body toward the dust of death, 

But could not thy firm spirit shake, 

To make thee draw one halting breath ? 

Why, that no trouble of the mind, 

No flutter in the anxious breast, 

Could ever the fast bond unbind 

That bound thee safe in perfect rest ? 


II. 

But didst thou always thus indeed 
Inviolate keep the peace of Christ? 

O brother of my soul, I need 

To know, Has thus one man sufficed ? 

When thousand little things perplexed, 
When waywardnesses, whims perverse, 

Obstructive, in thy fellows, vexed — 

Small trials oft than great ones worse — 

Say, didst thou then bide ever calm, 

Ever thy soul in peace possess, 

As to the music of a psalm 

Moving amid life’s daily stress? 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 287 

Would those who saw thee hourly nigh, 

Who with thee dwelt in mutual touch — 
Challenged for witness — testify 

That the great Paul was always such, 

In mien, in port, in deed, in word, 

Through all the least assays of life, 

As when to write those letters stirred, 

So with high calls to virtue rife? 

hi. 

Which will Paul answer? Yea? Or, Nay? 

I hardly know which better were. 

If he should roundly answer, Yea, 

It might more damp my spirit than spur — 

To feel how far the mark I miss; 

Yet heartening were it but to know 
That some one had attained to this, 

Had touched the goal toward which I go. 

But should Paul answer thus instead : 

Nay, I attained not what I taught; 

That goal I sighted far ahead, 

And only thither wrought and sought, 


288 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


Winning some distance day by day 
Toward the perfection that I saw 
Recede before me on the way, 

And fairer, nearer Christ, withdraw — 

Seems that a solace it would be; 

For I should think, Perhaps my Lord 
Will patience have and pity me, 

Nor mete me out too strict award. 

If he, even he, victorious Paul, 

Strove only, and did not attain, 

Then I, even I, need never fall 

Desponding, as to strive were vain. 


iv. 

And this, O Paul, indeed was thine, 

To struggle and not count thine aim 
To have been apprehended. Mine, 

Let it be mine, to do the same ! 

Yet tell me, thou crowned conqueror, 

How was it thou hadst heart to strive — 
Not one misgiving, one demur — 

And naught to keep good hope alive ? 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 289 


“ Nay, but thou much mistakest now, 
O brother striver, after me,” 

I hear Paul say; “ remember thou, 

I knew that I should conqueror be, 

“ At last, and rich results should reap, 
If but I did not cease to strive; 
That knowledge well availed to keep 
My courage and my hope alive.” 


v. 

My thought had been not to postpone 
Paul’s victory to after time; 

To strive as he strove, that alone, 

Had seemed a victory sublime. 

Was there sublimer victory his 
In prospect ? Was he to achieve ? 

A glorious crown of victory is 
Achieving, yea; and to believe 

That such a crown awaited him, 
Invisible as yet but sure, 

With faith no failure here could dim — 
That well might help him so endure. 
19 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 


But thou, 0 Paul, tell me once more — 
That faith of future victory thine, 

Which thus thy spirit still upbore, 

As with a buoyancy divine — 

Whence came it? Or how won’st it thou 
Was it sheer confidence of strength 

Thine, made thee, spite of failure now, 
Secure of triumphing at length? 

Reliance on one’s own resource, 

The presage of achievement, prize 

Of effort, and one’s native force 
Ever in joyous exercise — 

That is last proof of nature high, 

Of spirit to be victor born; 

It is itself a victory 

That laughs discomfiture to scorn. 

Twice victor then, O Paul, wert thou; * 
First, by firm fortitude to strive, 

Defying failure thee to cow, 

Next, by brave hope kept still alive. 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 291 


VI. 

Alas, it was Paul’s greatness then 
Him that illustrious conqueror made; 

“ Alas ! ” for all we lesser men 

See in this light our prospects fade. 

O Paul! O Paul! I am cast down, 

Not lifted up, because of thee! 

I never shall obtain thy crown, 

Victory like thine is not for me! 

But Paul makes answer to my sigh: 

“ No strength, nay, only weakness mine, 

I won because it was not I, 

But Christ in me. A gift divine 

“ To me my victory was, and is, 

No trophy to be worn in pride, 

But purchase of His agonies 
Who once to win it for me died. 

“ Now unto God our Father be 

Eternal thanks and glory given, 

Who unto us the victory 

Gives, through His Son ; by whom were riven, 


292 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


“ Once and for all, the gates of death, 
When He in triumph from the grave 

Rose, and above the land of breath 
Ascended, girt with power to save! ” 

VII. 

Raptures like these of laud from Paul, 
Ascriptions high, doxologies, 

As on resistless pinions all 
Upbear me into ecstasies — 

And still I ask, How did he know, 

Or did Paul know, that Christ arose, 

And, beyond height exalted so, 

Has might to vanquish all our foes? 

Our foes, not Paul’s alone, but ours, 

For of the victory as to “ us ” 

Given, he speaks. Are heavenly powers 
Then for us too embattled thus? 

VIII. 

Had Paul my hidden doubt divined ? 

He answered and abolished it; 

I felt as might the finite mind 
In contact with the infinite. 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 293 


Paul spoke of that stupendous hour 
When, to raise Jesus from the dead, 
God put forth His almighty power, 

And, death and hell discomfited, 

Enthroned him at His own right hand, 
Amid the heavenlies, far above 
All hierarchies of command, 

Executors of wrath or love, 

And far above whatever name 
Of lordship or authority — 

In this world or the next, the same — 
The prince supreme of princes, He ! 

Paul’s words themselves declaring this 
Heaved with a mighty swell and surge, 
As when the sea in its abyss 

Feels earthquake underneath it urge. 


IX. 

With passion and with power he spoke; 

A certain indignation sweet, 

Sweet but intense, within him woke, 

As thus he made his answer meet: 


294 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


“ How did I know that Christ arose ? 

I felt his resurrection power, 

In great regenerative throes, 

Renewing me from hour to hour. 

“ How did I know that Christ arose? 

Did He not meet me on my way 
Damascus-ward, in quest of those 

Whom thence I might bring bound, to slay, 

“ Only for that they loved my Lord! 

Alas, not known by me as mine, 

Him against whom I madly warred! 

He met me, and, oh, love divine! 

“ Did not at once destroy me quite, 

But only smote me to the ground 
With a hailstorm of heavenly light, 

And thunder-burst of heavenly sound, 

“ Awful and heavenly sound, which said, 

Why dost thou persecute me, Saul? 

And when I, less alive than dead — 

So did that light, that sound, appall! — 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 295 


“Asked, Who art thou ? to me replied, 

I Jesus am of Nazareth — 

Then, then, I knew that he who died 
On Calvary was lord of death, 

“And that all power on earth, in heaven, 

As in the invaded underworld, 

To Christ, the Crucified, was given, 

Who had that light upon me hurled! 

“ Nor has He since then ever ceased — 

But, since, His voice sounds heavenly soft, 
(Each hour the softness seems increased !) — 
To tell me, many a time and oft, 

“ The things I need to know, that I 
His will may truly, only, teach. 

His will is He — my calling high 
Christ as the Lord of all to preach. 


x. 

“ Deem’st thou I could have counted so 
As nothing, less than nothing, all 
I once had valued here below, 

Have been from Saul transformed to Paul, 


296 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


“ Had I not known that Christ was risen, 
And was ascended up on high ? 

Could have sung triumph-songs in prison, 
Explored the earth from sky to sky, 

“ Still journeying, at uncounted cost, 
Sickness, and weariness, and pain, 
Faintness from fasting, shipwreck ; tost 
With tempest naked in the main ; 

“ In perils ever, every form, 

Rivers and robbers ; wilderness 
And city; buffeted with storm ; 

Worse buffeted with sore distress 

“ From plots among my countrymen 
Against me, yea, from traitorhood 
Nourished among my brethren ; then, 

By whom I most would serve, withstood, 

“ The Gentiles; oft in hunger, thirst, 

Cold, nakedness, denials of sleep, 
Travail, imprisonment, and, worst 
Anguish imprisonment can keep 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 297 

“ For the quick spirit, enforced arrest 
Of travail; thrice, the Roman rod ; 

The scourge, five times, at Jewish hest; 
Stoned, and for dead left on the sod — 

“ All these things, and besides them all, 

The ceaseless care I could but feel 
For what the churches might befall, 

My heart atremble to appeal, 

“ If any suffered, or was glad — 

Who was there weak, but he in me 
A fellow in his weakness had? — 

Charged with vicarious sympathy, 

“ Which made me toward my brethren yearn 
In costly quivers of the heart ; 

If any stumbled, I would burn 

Fervid to take the stumbler’s part — 

“ Thus lived I, thus I daily died 
Say rather, for so many deaths 
I suffered for the Crucified 

As were the tally of my breaths. 


298 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL, 


XI. 

“ Say, O stout-hearted to believe, 

Believ’st thou Paul indeed did thus 
Of free-will choice his lot receive, 

Fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, 

“ All for a Christ he did not know 
Had risen in glory from the dead, 

And had, ascending, made a show 
Of subject powers in triumph led? 

“ Nay, nay, my brother, slow of heart, 
Thou, to believe the grace of God, 
While swift, too swift, to choose thy part 
Believing downward toward the clod, 

“ I knew, I knew, whom I believed, 

I trusted Him with perfect trust; 

He would not let me be deceived, 

I should rise with Him from the dust! ” 

XII. 

Abashed, ashamed, I rallied yet 
To say: O Paul, forgive once more, 
Nor, though I show my folly, let 
My folly vex thee, I implore. 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 299 

If thou hadst but believed, not known, 

That Christ was quickened from the dead, 

And sat on an almighty throne, 

Of principalities the head — 

Thy faith alone, without the fact, 

Would that not nobly have sufficed? 

What force to fire thy zeal had lacked 
A dead, believed a living, Christ ? 

“ Oh, faithless, thou, to dream that faith 
Could work the miracle of me ! 

Faith too not faith, but fancy, wraith 
Without pretence of right to be. 

“ But granted faith were such a force, 

Yet whence were such a faith to me ? 

A reason there must have been, a source, 

To faith like that — or fantasy ! 

“ Something once brought me to receive 
For true that which, before, my whole 

Being revolted to believe — 

What was it so subdued my soul ? 


300 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


XIII. 

“ Not argument; I could oppose 
Their argument with argument; 

It was not witness borne by those 
Who followed Jesus where He went 

“ While living, and who testified, 

Never so stoutly, they had seen 
Their Master after that He died; 

Had forty days long with Him been, 

“ At intervals; had with Him talked; 

Had seen Him eat and drink ; had heard 
His, Peace be unto you ; had walked 
With Him, their hearts within them stirred 

“ To burning, as, upon the way, 

He spake and opened unto them 
The Scriptures, insomuch that they 

Felt they had touched the garment’s hem 

“ Of some one heavenly — afterward, 

Clear, in the breaking of the bread, 
Revealed to them as Christ the Lord, 

Indeed, then, risen from the dead! 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 301 

“ Witness so strong could not avail 
To shame my froward unbelief; 

I listened often to the tale, 

Only each time with deeper grief, 

“ More burning scorn, to hear it told — 

With strange additions thereunto 
In repetition manifold, 

As would each teller fain outdo 

“ His fellow, and make marvel more: 

How once, they, being in secret met, 

Their Lord had entered through the door 
Fast shut, and shut remaining yet; 

“ And how, at length, before their eyes 
Their Master, after forty days 
Of tarrying with them, they saw rise 

Till heaven received Him from their gaze. 

“ And when he thus to view was lost, 

They tarrying in Jerusalem 
Until the day of Pentecost, 

And waiting what would happen them, 


302 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 


“ How then their Lord, arrived in heaven, 
There welcomed by the heavenly host, 
Had thence sent down upon the eleven 
The promise of the Holy Ghost, 

“ In sound as of a rushing blast 

Of mighty wind with solemn boom ; 

And there were tongues like fire that fast 
Clung to each one within the room. 

XIV. 

“ Strange that all this I could resist! 

But so I did, perversely blind ; 

My eyes were holden, and I missed 
To let the light into my mind — 

“ Because my heart, which held the key, 

Had locked it shut; I do not know 
What lesser proof had mastered me 
Than that great light which laid me low. 

“ Oh, the exceeding grace of God 

Toward me, such ill-deserving one, 

To lay me level with the clod — 

Lowly enough to know his Son ! 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL . 303 


“Thus, and not otherwise, was I 

Bond-servant of Christ Jesus made; 
Less than Lord throned in power on high 
Had never such as Paul obeyed. 


xv. 

“ Or did I haply a chance flash 
Of lightning in a cloudless sky, 

With, after that, a muttering crash 
Of thunder breaking from on high, 

“ Mistake for a supernal flame 

Of glory drowning out the sun, 

And for words uttered, with my name, 
Distinctly dropping one by one, 

“ Like gentle thunderbolts of sound, 

That framed a question dread to hear — 

But, lying prostrate on the ground, 

My body all was as one ear! — 

“ Was this, forsooth, illusion pure, 

Which, nathless, through long years of strife, 
Helped me a thousand deaths endure, 

And made a triumph of my life ? 


304 AN BASTE ft HOUR WITH PAUL. 


“ Did Paul behave like one distraught ? 

Read thee his letters once again, 

Think of the homely things he taught, 

And wholesome, to plain common men. 

“What am I saying? Wilt thou hence 
Ask, Is not Paul once more become 
A fool in this his confidence 

Of boasting ? Were I wiser dumb, 

“ Than speaking thus ? Perhaps; but I 
Gladly am fool for Christ. And thou, 
Let me, with even my folly, try 
If I may meet thy folly now. 

XVI. 

“ Was Paul a mystic ? Yea, and, Nay. 

With high transcendencies he dealt, 
Doubtless, but with them mixed alway 
Things the most sanely thought and felt. 

“This ever to the utter end, 

The earthly utter end of all; 

Thy quest through history extend, 

And find no saner soul than Paul. 


AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 305 


“ God kept me such, against the stress 
Of strong temptation to aspire 
Above just measure through excess 
Of revelations more and higher 

“ Vouchsafed to me beyond my peers. 
Effectual means His wisdom found 
To let me breathe in other spheres, 

With yet my feet firm on the ground. 

“ A thorn he planted in my flesh, 

Sharp plague and torment to my pride, 
Reminding me at need afresh 
That self must still be crucified. 

“Concerning this, I thrice besought 
My Lord that it might be removed; 

His grace would make my suffering naught, 
But leave my patience to be proved ! ” 

XVII. 

O Paul, O Paul, enough, enough ! 

With all these doubts and questions mine, 
Well had I earned a round rebuff, 

Rather than gentleness like thine. 

20 


306 AN EASTER HOUR WITH PAUL. 


XV III. 

Greatheart, all blessings on his name! 

But for his faith my faith had failed; 
I, if at last not put to shame, 

To him shall owe it I prevailed. 

But nay, oh, nay ! I do him wrong, 
And miss his spirit, speaking thus; 
Loudest amid the ransomed throng 
His voice I hear, “ Not unto us! ” 

To him then not, yet for him, yea, 

Let me forever thanks accord, 

’Mid gifts received, and many they, 
Still the chief place to Paul award. 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 


307 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 

A FRAGMENT. 

I slept and dreamed, and in my dream I saw 
A vision such as, since remembered, seems 
An allegory and a parable 
In lively act and picture full displayed, 

Of things that have been, things that are, and things 
That will hereafter be, upon the earth — 

Process of sentence, issued long ago, 

Or slowly issuing now, or yet to be 
Issued, upon mankind’s idolatries, 

Their gods no gods, their worships false and vain; 
It was as if a sequence secular 
Of causes and effects in endless chain, 
Foreshortened to that vision of an hour! 

Since then the solemn order of events 
Becomes to me, beholding it unroll, 

One executed judgment of our God 
On foolish men’s forgetfulness of Him; 


308 a vision of judgment. 

Before my watching eyes a web is woven 
Into a fabric waiting to be whole, 

Silently woven by a hand unseen, 

The hand that plies the loom of history. 

A throne was set and thereupon I saw 
One sitting who was crowned with many crowns. 
These all were glorious, and they blazed with light, 
Caught and reflected in ten thousand gems 
Studding the circlets, from the face and brow 
Of Him that wore them; but the fairest crown, 

Of softest splendor and most amiable, 

As if of its own lustre seemed to shine; 

That crown was closest on the forehead worn. 

It had no jewels; instead were points of light 
That burned like jetting moonbeams — more 
intense, 

Yet gentle, and not dazzling to behold — 

Ranged in a circle round about the head, 

Some inward and some outward rayonnant. 

I looked and lo, it was a crown of thorns 
Transfigured to this heavenly anadem ! 

The session of that king upon his throne 
Seemed not for solemn state and pageantry. 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 


309 


He did not hold a sceptre in his hand, 

As one who ruled; instead, as one who judged, 
He held an equal balance poised aright. 

I saw that no assessor sat with Him; 

Sufficient to Himself in solitude, 

And ample as if great by multitude, 

In unsupported majesty He sat. 

At first the throne, and He with many crowns 
And that crown, chiefly beautiful, of thorns, 
Who sat thereon, was all that I beheld. 

There seemed no palace-court, or palace-hall, 

Or palace, or assembly, or fixed place, 

Or sense of space, or time, or anything — 

Only that throne and He its occupant! 

Then, by the easy miracle of dream, 

A level wide champaign, most living green, 
Waving with harvest, opened to the sight. 

A slow and mighty river, hue of brown, 

Rolled, equal with its banks, along the plain. 
From this were parted irrigating rills, 

Frequent, this way and that on either side, 
Turned with the foot, or lifted with the wheel, 
To flow in many a vein of meat and drink 
To verdure and to tilth through all the land. 


3io 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 


The sun shone genial from a cloudless sky, 

And bathed that smiling scene with heat and light. 
At intervals along the river shores, 

Or from the river shores not far withdrawn, 

Rose palaces and temples nobly built, 

But of a solemn aspect, sombre even, 

Like human frowns in ever-during stone, 
Contrasted with the landscape and the sky, 

The smiling landscape and the smiling sky. 

All round the breadths of green thus river-fed, 
Was bound a burning zone of desert sand 
That stretched to the horizon far away. 

Upon the hither border of this tract, 

Piercing the lucent azure of the sky, 

Climbed upward from their bases, built so broad 
Each might have seemed a principality, 

Mountains of stone high piled by human hands, 
Mountains for size, yet shapely pyramids. 

Then, in my dream, by all these signs I knew 
The land was Egypt, and the river, Nile. 

And now a wonder. All the human life 
That lived within that region populous 
Swarmed into sudden simultaneous view, 

A countless multitude beneath the sky. 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 


3*1 


Palace and hovel, all the homes and haunts 
Of men, public or private, far or near, 

Seemed to pour forth at once their habitants, 
Spontaneous confluent streams of human life 
Together closing, and filled all the plain . 1 
Scarce was this mighty mustering frequence full, 
When, lo, a change! The multitudinous host, 
From many and from diverse, as at first 
I saw it gather, by insensible 
Degrees, yet swiftly, took upon itself 
The form of one, voluminous and vast. 

Of mass there seemed somehow to be no loss, 
And no loss of dimension, in the change; 

Only what had been many, now was one. 

Colossal was the figure thus revealed, 

Colossal, yet not overgrown, nor gross, 

Nor monstrous. Exquisite proportion just 
Of one part to another, and of each 
To all, this, and a harmony complete 
Between the figure and the environment, 

Made it a pleasure for the eye to see. 

The sex seemed woman, or not masculine, 

Save in suggestion of heroic strength. 

The strength was needful to prevent such grace 


312 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT . 


As was that figure’s, such exceeding grace, 

From sinking into softness that had hurt 
The half-stern, solemn, and austere effect 
Of majesty in person and in port. 

The features were serene in stony calm, 

No smile, but set and secular repose. 

It was as if antiquity herself 

Were blooming here in sempiternal youth, 

Youth, and an air of universal queen. 

As I perused the form and lineaments, 

I thought that I had never seen before 
Image of one so worthy to be queen. 

For, with that stately stature drawn to height 
Surpassing mortal measure, and that shape, 

The mould of beauty, and that mien of might, 
She wore upon her brow a look of power 
From knowledge, an irradiating light 
Shed outward from within, the seal august 
Of mind set on her from the hand of God. 

Thus noble and thus beautiful to me 
Egypt appeared, impersonate in my dream. 

While still I gazed and wondered and admired, 
Misgiving fell upon me. I perceived 
That Egypt never lifted her proud eyes 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 313 

From gazing earthward; strangely unaware 
Seemed she of that presiding Presence throned, 
Who, notwithstanding that she now was seen, 
Queenly in her colossal loveliness, 

Sat as if He, with omnipresence robed, 

Still claimed and occupied all space alone. 

Yet, when I looked, that throne of majesty — 
Retired in a retributive recoil 
To distance and remove from the contempt 
And insult of such disregard profane — 

Had, jealous, unapproachably withdrawn 
Into the utmost regions of the sky 
Above the horizon cold, like the north star, 

Yet visible and imminent not less, 

To seeming, now than it before had been. 

I was awe-struck; I shuddered for that queen, 
Sumptuous fair Egypt, lest some dreadful thing, 
What, I dared not divine, befall her there. 

What could befall her worse than her own deed ? 
For now I saw that, hidden in the folds 
Of her voluminous raiment flowing down 
And trailing at her feet, Egypt had brought 
A virgin garlanded with lotus bloom, 

But with her own bloom better garlanded, 


314 A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 

The image of herself, a daughter fair. 

The mother held her daughter by the hand, 
While thus a canticle of prayer she tuned: 

“ All hail, O Nile ! Adored be thy name, 

Who, issuing from the chambers of the dark, 
Dost manifest thyself unto this land, 

And comest bringing life to all. O Thou, 
Exhaustless, rolling hither, from the sky 
Descended, what were we without thy gifts ? 

If thou shouldst cease one moment from thy toil, 
Being would suffer through her hierarchies. 

The gods in heaven as men upon the earth — 
Behold thou givest existence unto all; 

But whence thyself thou art, that no man knows ; 
Thou hidest thy beginning in the south. 

Prosper, O Inundation of the Nile! 

Be gracious, and accept our sacrifice.” 
Wherewith she flashed a sudden lightning forth, 
Waved it on high through circles in the air, 

And plunged it, ere I saw it was a knife, 

Into the bosom of that virgin fair; 

Her bright blood spouted from the wound it 
made. 

I fain had cried with horror and affright, 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 315 

But my tongue stiffened and my utterance froze, 
While, with eyes fixed wide open, forced to see, 

I watched what next the murderess would do. 

She stooped, she bowed her regal head, she fell, 
That proud, that lovely creature fell, and prone 
In act of absolute prostration lay, 

Face downward on the border of the Nile, 
Worshipping abject; she the waters kissed 
For homage to the river as to God. 

But, in such instantaneous sequel swift 
As seemed not sequel howsoever swift, 

A movement simultaneous rather — lo, 

Forth, from before that imminent Throne remote 
Commissioned, had come a solitary form, 

Human, but of a superhuman height 

And gesture, as appeared — or height enhanced, 

And gesture, with effect of majesty, 

Enduement and illusion now bestowed — 

Had come, or, without coming, there had stood, 
Looming above that prostrate worshipper, 

Like a rebuking prophet — with a rod. 

I thought that he would smite her lying there; 
But, nay, it was the river he smote instead, 

The great and ger^ river with his rod, 


3i 6 


A VISION OF JUDGMENT\ 


To dreadful purpose dreadfully fulfilled. 

For, when that tall, fair worshipper arose 
From her prostration on the river brink, 

It was with strange convulsion of revolt; 

I, looking nigh, beheld upon her lips, 

For crystal drops of water, dew of blood ! 

The Nile she kissed had kissed her back in blood ! 
And all that mighty river, and all its streams, 

And all the water wheresoever stored 
In pond or pool, in ewer of wood or stone, 
Throughout the land, rotted, one plague of blood! 
Horrible retribution, blood for blood, 

Increase ten thousand times ten thousand fold ! 


CHRIST IN ME. 


317 


CHRIST IN ME. 

Would I could make my fellows know 
All that in me my Lord hath wrought! 

I strive in vain the truth to show, 

I cannot speak it as I ought. 

If, when men smite me, I am meek, 

If, when they wrong me, I forgive, 

And, wroth, refuse my wrath to wreak,— 
That, friends, is Christ doth in me live 

If with the joyful I am glad, 

Or, apt in fellowship of cheer, 

I with the sorrowful am sad, 

Christ’s, and not mine, that smile or tear. 

Nothing am I that is not he, 

Nothing of gracious, fair, or good , 

Would I could make my fellows see 
The lovely secret as they should l 


GRACE FOR GRACE. 


31# 


GRACE FOR GRACE. 

A fair composure in the face, 

A musing mildness in the eye, 

Tones tuned to tenderness and grace, 

A smile like morning in the sky; 

A floating motion, soft and slow, 

And rhythmic, like more perfect rest, 

Swayed as to some melodious flow 
Of silent music in the breast— 

Traits such as these, my darling, may, 
With mask of placid manner, hide 

Passions that, couchant beasts of prey, 
Do but their chance of springing bide. 

Well for us there is One can make 
These tigers of the bosom tame ; 

The sleek, sly, savage monsters take 
Their will of every lesser name. 


GRACE FOR GRACE. 


3 T 9 


But his, but Christ’s, has power to quell 
The lurking wildness in the blood, 

To quench the hidden fires of hell 
That inly brew the future flood. 

Bestead us, Christ! We fain would learn 
The lesson none can teach but thee ; 

Us from our self-deceiving turn ; 

We tire of seeming and would be— 

Be gracious to the inmost core, 

In to the depths serene and sweet, 

Stilled to beneath where waves could roar, 
Or the world’s tempests vainly beat ! 

So mastered, we shall meetly wear 
The soul’s own beauty on the face, 

And what men find in us of fair, 

No mask, will be but grace for grace. 


320 


TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 


TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, 
HOMEWARD BOUND. 

Thy country, prouder of herself for thee, 

As justlier proud, sends thee her welcome home ! 

Come, hither borne by the exultant sea 

That leaps to feel thee on her breast of foam. 

Wafted with farewells from yon kindred shore, 
That could not keep thee, though so dear her 
claim, 

Come, loyal exile, to that land once more 
Whose loyal love to thee is more than fame. 

With farewells wafted, and with beckonings drawn, 
Home bring at last the dear and honored brow. 

Alas, what is it from his side is gone 

Erst cheered him hence, him hither cheers not 
now? 

God love thee, poet, by thy lonely hearth, 

Thy children’s children round their grandsire’s 
knee! 

For them, for us, long life be thine on earth! 

And so our welcome turns to prayer for thee. 





n 

















HOME FROM THE HAY-FIELD. 321 


HOME FROM THE HAY-FIELD. 

The meek-eyed oxen snatched upon the way 
Dew-moistened morsels of the scattered hay, 
While the tired farmer followed on amain 
And as they halted urged them on again. 

Down the green pasture rose the cheerful sound 
Of tinkling cow-bell as the herd came round, 

And truant school-boy from the neighboring brook, 
Warned by the twilight, drew his lingering hook. 
The peaceful flock assembled on the hill 
To hold their council, then disperse at will. 

Anon from farm-cot I could faintly hear 
The wakeful cocks send forth their voices clear, 
The sweet birds twitter as they went to rest 
Luring their fellows to a half-filled nest, 

The cricket chirping from the lone stone-wall, 

The trilling tree-toad to its echo call, 

The friendless bull-frog from the morass croak, 
The night-bird cawing from some far-off oak. 

So fell the evening, and her voice was cheer, 
Albeit pensive to my pensive ear. 


21 


322 


HEAVEN WAS NOT DEAF. 


HEAVEN WAS NOT DEAF. 


[A lovely Christian girl of eighteen was smitten with paralysis which first 
affected only her feet. The fatal numbness crept thence slowly upward, un¬ 
stayed by anything that love, or care, or skill could do, until at length it reached 
the vital organs, and the gentle sufferer, hardly a sufferer, peacefully ceased to 
be.] 


Too cold, so cold ! It chilled the tender feet, 

That sudden touch of Jordan in her way ; 

She shuddered, but went forward, no retreat 
From the deep ford that dark before her lay! 

The deep, dark, lonely ford, the chill, the still, 
With such temptation drew her footsteps now — 
As in a dream, and conscious of no ill, 

Right on she went with unaverted brow. 

With unaverted brow — although, “ Beware ! ” 

We from the first had cried aloud, “Yon wave 
Is chill, is chill, beyond thy strength to bear; 

Such deadly chill, O child, thou must not brave! ” 


HEAVEN WAS NOT DEAF. 323 

What stopped her ears ? Say, why would she per¬ 
sist 

To tempt that sunken, perilous path alone ? 
Why turned she not or ever the wave kissed 

Those fair young feet and changed her feet to 
stone ? 

She was not wont, pure heart and gentle will, 

She was not wont before to bear her thus; 
Love’s lightest whisper ever swayed her, till 

What strange enticement turned her face from us! 

Deeper, still deeper! We, upon the bank, 

Vainly beheld, and stretched out helpless hands 
And wept and prayed, while still she slowly sank — 
And Heaven, that saw, so deaf to our demands ! 

Heaven was not deaf, but we were blind ! Forgive, 
Forgive our blindness ! We were blind with tears ; 
But tears have purged our eyes, that now we live 
Beholding hopes where there were only fears. 

It was but as in burial with her Lord, 

And gentle likeness of His death, she sank — 
Only to rise with Him, His shining ward, 

In resurrection from the farther bank. 


324 


GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 


GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 


Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus 
Tam cari capitis ? 

One like himself should praise him! Soul of 
grace, 

Untaintable white brightness, like a ray 
Of sunshine stainless ever though astray 
’Mid stains; high honor, yet of pride no trace 
To flaw the manly sweetness of the face; 

Fair mirror of pure knightly to our day, 

Shaming the vaunted chivalry passed away. 
Could he run back the irremeable race — 

That certain, keen intelligence of truth, 

That quick, instinctive sympathy divine 
With nobleness, young in perpetual youth, 

That tongue, that pen, of tempered utterance 
fine — 

Then in what kindled words, how soft with ruth, 
Were there his like, his like gone hence should 
shine! 

















MYRRH. 


325 


MYRRH. 

“ All thy garments smell of myrrh.” — Psalm. 

As one in winter entering from without 

Brings in-door with him freshening from the cold, 

A sphere of weather wrapping him about, 
Entangled in his raiment fold on fold, 

And those who sit too closely housed within 
Snuffing such scent of fragrance free and frore, 

Wish for a moment they themselves might win 
To breathe in all that freedom out of door; 

So, teacher, thou, thy garments richly spiced 
With weight of odor from the heavenly air 

Of secret audience long and close with Christ, 
Sabbath by sabbath to thy task repair. 

Be sure who meet thee will discern the trace 
Of other climate clinging round thee here; 

And some perhaps will seek to find the place 
Whence thou couldst bring so sweet an atmos¬ 
phere. 


326 A LIEGEMAN OF THE LORD . 


A LIEGEMAN OF THE LORD. 

H. C. 

0 knightly-hearted liegeman of the Lord, 
Soldier of truth and champion of the right, 
Erst riding ever foremost in the fight 
Where for the poor and lowly it was warred, 

Or against rampant wickedness abhorred, 

Thy tall plume flashing far its stainless white 
And beckoning onward like a beam of light, 
With all things pure and fair a bright accord! — 
We miss thee, and the battle presses sore, 
The endless battle for the Christ of God; 

O voice, ring hither from the thither shore, 

O stately form, rise up, rending the sod, 

O good sword-hand, swing that good sword 
once more, 

Swung as with sway of His entrusted rod ! 









SAILING . 


327 


SAILING. 

The good ship sailing on the ocean plain 
Need reck not how the billows blown abound 
Against her in the waste of waters round; 

She mounts their foamy summits tossed amain 
To overtop and overwhelm in vain. 

Yet must she keep her build seaworthy sound, 
Let no least weakness anywhere be found 
Within her by the searching stress and strain 
Of wave and weather, to admit the sea 
Importunate through hid little rifts and seams. 

Such flaws beneath, in darkling treachery 
Widening betwixt supposed well-jointed beams, 
Will slowly, surely, howsoever she 
Struggle, engulf her in the ocean-streams. 

So fares my soul, taking her perilous way 
Athwart the weltering ocean of the world; 
However wide averse her keel be hurled 
By froward wind and wave full many a day, 


328 


SAILING. 


She tends toward entrance still into the bay 
Capacious and pacific, where, with furled 
Sail, she may rest and be no farther whirled, 

Of wantoning tempest wild the sport and prey. 

But she, she too, must heed, or, unaware, 

The vain world, all-involving element, 

Beneath her and about her everywhere, 
Besieging ever with fixed fierce intent, 

Will force some secret leak, and, entering there, 
Make my soul founder, to the bottom sent! 





I 


I 








POWER BY REPOSE. 


329 


POWER BY REPOSE. 

A. J. G. 

Grant me but where to stand,” one long ago 
Said boldly, in the triumph of an hour 
When sense of wisdom gave him sense of 
power, 

Grant me but where to stand, and I will show 

The earth we live on wielded to and fro 

With forces whereof I have won the dower.” 
Vainly that Syracusan, prime and flower 

Of cunning though he was, spoke vaunting so. 

Thou, prophet of the living God, hadst found, 
Outside the sway and tremble of the sphere, 

A moveless centre of repose, and ground 
Of certain, settled hope, apart from fear. 

Standing thereon serene while Satan frowned, 
Thou shook’st the pillars of his princedom 
here. 


330 


ASPIRATION. 


ASPIRATION. 

i. 

I meant to be a noble soul, 

Ample and pure and high, 

No fleck, no flaw, a perfect whole, 

Or nobler none than I. 

My boyhood was a daily dream 
Of what the man should be, 

That future backward flung its gleam 
To lure and lighten me. 

The fair ideal self I saw 
Before me day by day, 

Beckoning, instilled a kind of awe, 

A shame of dull delay. 

“ Haste thee,” it said, “ the time is brief, 
And long the way to me; 

I shiver like a shaken leaf 
To think of missing thee. 


ASP IRA TION. 


331 


“ For I am nothing but a wraith 
And phantom of the air, 

Living a breathless life of faith 
Until thou clasp me fair, 

“ As clasped that prophet once the clay 
Whence late the breath had fled, 
And broke the trance wherein it lay, 
The slumber of the dead. 

“Then I shall live indeed, when thou 
Hast reached me where I am, 

And where, unfurled for thee, I now 
Fling out the oriflamme. 

“ I cannot, will not, move toward thee; 
Nay, here I hardly stay: 

We shall not meet, unless to me 
Thou hither win thy way.” 

11. 

So sang the ideal of my youth 
A song of plaintive cheer, 

As from a heavenly height of truth 
It smote upon mine ear — 


332 


ASP IRA TION. 


A haunting song that would not cease, 
Nor ever let me be; 

Its bugle rally broke my peace 
With, “ Hither thence to me! ” 


hi. 

Alas, I have not touched the goal 
Of my lifelong desire ! 

Didst therefore vainly, O my soul, 
Thou thitherward aspire ? 

Not vainly! though attainment hath 
Been yet to thee denied; 

Thou hast won onward, and the path 
Invites thee, still untried. 

Up for the endless path ! Nor faint, 
Though never thou arrive; 

None hath occasion of complaint 
Who endlessly may strive. 


AND HE WAS NOT\ FOR GOD TOOK HIM. 333 


“ AND HE WAS NOT, FOR GOD TOOK 
HIM.” 

So sudden and so swift 
The earthly end to him ! 

Upward, O God, we lift 
Our eyes with weeping dim, 

If haply even our tears, 

Shone through like sunlit rain — 

A sight to shame our fears — 

May show us there again, 

Bent beautiful above 

These clouds about us blown, 

In sign thou still art love, 

The rainbow round the throne! 


334 


A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. 


A PRINCE IN ISRAEL. 

How is the strong staff broken, and the rod 
Beautiful long before so many eyes! 

We, with habitual comfort, saw it rise, 

Like a tall palm high regnant o’er the sod 
Where to the breeze its fronded branches nod, 
The stateliest thing beneath the sunny skies, 
Yet bountiful as stately, its great prize 
Of fruitage yielding yearly, blest of God ! 

Such yesterday was he; but prostrate now 
He stretches that imperial stature fair, 

The shapely column, the fruit-bearing bough, 
Ruined along the ground, and, look ye, where 
He stood late, lifting up his kingly brow, 
Void and a desolation in the air! 


















































TRANSLATION OF HOMER . 


335 


EXPERIMENTS IN LITERAL TRANSLA¬ 
TION OF HOMER. 


i. 

The anger, goddess, sing, of Peleus’ son, 
Achilles, — anger dire, that on the Greeks 
Brought myriad woes, and many mighty souls 
Too soon of heroes unto Hades sent, 

And gave themselves a ravin to the dogs 
And to all birds of prey— howbeit the will 
Of Zeus fulfilled itself — even from the time 
That first they two, Atrides, king of men, 

And high Achilles, wrangling fell apart. 

Iliad, I. 1-7. 


2 . 

Zeus spake, and with his dark brows gave the 
nod : 

The ambrosial locks therewith streamed from the 
king’s 

Immortal head; Olympus great it shook. 

These two, thus having counselled, parted; she 
Leapt thereupon into the deep sea-brine 


336 TRANSLATION ON HOMER. 

From bright Olympus — to his dwelling Zeus. 
The gods together all rose from their seats 
Before their sire, nor any durst abide 
Him coming, but they all to meet him stood. 

So he there sat him down upon his throne; 

Nor seeing him was Here not aware 
That with him had deliberated plans 
The daughter of the Ancient of the sea, 

Thetis of silver foot. With cutting words, 
Straightway the son of Kronos, Zeus, she hailed. 

Iliad, I. 528-539. 


3 - 

He spake; the goddess, white-armed Here, 
smiled; 

And smiling she accepted with her hand 
The goblet from her son. But he from right 
To left to all the other gods poured out 
Sweet nectar, drawing from the mixing-bowl: 

And inextinguishable laughter then was roused 
Among the blessed gods, when they beheld 
Hephaestus brisking through the palace halls. 

So all day long unto the setting sun 
They feasted then, nor of an equal feast 


TRANSLATION OF HOMER. 


33 7 


Failed the desire in aught, not of the harp 
Exceeding beautiful which Phoebus held, 

Or of the Muses who with beautiful voice 
Alternate sang responsive each to each. 

But when the sun’s resplendent light was set, 
Desiring to lie down they homeward went, 

Each where for each the far-renowned lame 
Hephaestus built a house with cunning skill. 

The Olympian Flasher of the Lightning, Zeus, 
Went to his couch where erst he wont to lie 
When sweet sleep came on him ; ascending there 
He slept, and Here, golden-throned, beside. 

Iliad, I. 595-611. 


4 - 

The rest sat down, and in the seats were quelled. 
Thersites only still kept clamoring on, 
Licentious-tongued; who many a shameless phrase 
Knew in his mind, hap-hazard, lawlessly 
To brawl with kings — whate’er might seem to him 
To be droll for the Greeks. The ugliest man 
That came to Ilium ; bandy-legged he was, 

Lame in one foot; and his bent shoulders twain 

Hugged o’er his chest together, while above 

22 


333 


TRANS LA TION OF HOMER. 


Peaked of head was he, and thereupon 
A thin-worn plush of flossy hair adhered. 

Iliad, II. 211-219. 

5 - 

As when upon a many-echoing shore, 

Billow fast following billow of the sea 
Is roused beneath the thronging western wind, 
Upon the deep at first it towers its height, 

And next, shattered against the continent, booms 
Mightily, and round the crags its curling crest 
Uprears, and spouts its spray of brine afar, 

So ranks fast following ranks of Danaans then 
Ceaselessly on and on thronged to the war. 

Iliad, IV. 422-428. 

6 . 

So having said, resplendent Hector reached 
To take his child. But backward he, the child. 
Toward the fair-girdled nurse’s bosom drew, 
Crying, abashed at the dear father’s looks, 

And frightened by his mail; he saw the crest 
Of horse-hair from the summit of the helm 
Terribly waving, eyeing it; outright 
Both the dear father and queen-mother laughed. 
Straight from his head resplendent Hector took 


TRANSLATION OF HOMER. 339 

The helm, and placed it glittering on the ground. 
When he besides had kissed his darling son 
And tossed him in his hands, alike to Zeus 
And to the other gods praying, he spoke: 
***** 

So having said, he gave into the hands 
Of the dear wife his boy ; she tearfully 
Smiling, to her sweet bosom took him then. 
Regarding her the husband pitied her ; 

Both with his hand he soothed her, and he spoke. 

Iliad, VI. 466-475, 482-485. 


7 - 

Holding high thoughts, they on the bridge of 
war 

Sat all night long, and many blazed their fires. 

As when in heaven stars round the glittering moon 
Shine forth exceeding beautiful, and when 
Breathlessly tranquil is the upper air, 

And in their places all the stars are seen, 

And glad at heart the watching shepherd is; 

So many, ’twixt the ships and Xanthus’ streams, 
Shone fires by Trojans kindled fronting Troy. 

Iliad,* VIII. 553-561. 


* From “ The Epic of Saul,” p. 332. 


34 ^ CITY MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE. 


THE CITY MOUSE AND THE COUNTRY 
MOUSE* 

EXPERIMENT IN DACTYLIC HEXAMETER. 

Literally translated from Horace. 

Once, runs the story, a mouse of the country 
within his poor cavern 

Welcomed a mouse of the city — old cronies they 
each of the other — 

Manners uncouth, sharp eye to his hoard, yet dis¬ 
posed notwithstanding, 

Acting the host, his close heart to unbind. Why 
multiply words ? He 

Neither the stored-away chick-pea grudged, nor his 
longest oat-kernel. 

Forth in his mouth he, bringing the dry plum, also 
his nibbled 

Bacon-bits, gave them, eager with various banquet 
to vanquish 


From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. iv., pp. 196, 197. 


CITY MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE. 34I 

Niceness of guest scarce touching with tooth of 
disdain any viand: 

While, stretched on fresh litter of straw, he, lord of 
the household, 

Ate him a spelt-grain or darnel, the choicer pro¬ 
visions refraining. 

Finally, city-bred says to the other: “ What is it, 
companion, 

Tempts you, enduring, to live on the ridge abrupt 
of the forest ? 

You, too — will you prefer men and town to the 
fierce savage wildwood ? 

Up and away — trust, comrade, to me; since crea¬ 
tures terrestrial 

Life allotted a mortal portion of breath, nor is any 

Refuge from death to great or to small: so, my 
excellent fellow, 

While it is granted you, live in agreeable wise, well- 
conditioned ; 

Live recollecting of span how brief you are." 

Soon as these speeches 

Wrought on the swain, he out of his dwelling lightly 
leaps forth: thence 


342 CITY MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE . 

Press they, the pair, on the journey proposed, being 
keenly desirous 

Under the walls of the city to creep as night-farers. 
And night now 

“ Half-way up hill this vast sublunar vault ” clomb, 
when 

Each of the mice set foot in a palace resplendent, 
where drapings 

Tinctured crimson in grain were glowing on ivory 
couches. 

Numberless dishes remaining from yesterday’s 
sumptuous supper 

There at remove stood in panniers loftily built like 
a turret. 

So when now he has placed at his ease on a couch- 
spread of purple 

Countrymanmouse, obsequious host he runs hither 
and thither, 

Course after course the supper prolongs, and, with 
flourish of service, 

Does all the honors in form, whatever he offers 
foretasting. 

He, reclining, rejoices in altered estate, and in 
plenty, 


CITY MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE. 343 

Plays you the part of jolly good fellow — when, 
sudden, a mighty 

Rumble of doors rolling open both of them shock 
from their couches: 

Helter-skelter scampering went they, stricken with 
terror — 

Growingly breathless with panic they quake, while 
rings the great mansion 

Loud to the baying of mastiffs Molossian. 

Then countrymanmouse said: 

“Life such as this I’ve no use for; good-bye to 
you : me, with the lowly 

Vetch, shall the woods, and a cave secure from 
surprises, make happy.” 


344 


THUNDERBOL TS. 


THUNDERBOLTS.* 

Literally translated from Lucretius. 

If Jupiter [Lucretius sings and says], 

If Jupiter it be, and other gods, 

That with terrific sound the temple shake, 

Shake the resplendent temple of the skies, 

And launch the lightning whither each one wills, 
Why is it that the strokes transfix not those 
Guilty of some abominable crime, 

As these within their breasts the flames inhale, 
Instruction sharp to mortals — why not this, 
Rather than that the man of no base thing 
To himself conscious should be wrapt about 
Innocent in the flames, and suddenly 
With whirlwind and with fire from heaven con¬ 
sumed? 

Also, why seek they out, the gods, for work 
Like this, deserted spots, and waste their pains? 


* From “ The Epic of Saul,” pp. 362-364. 


THUNDERBOL TS. 


345 


Or haply do they then just exercise 

Their muscles, that thereby their arms be strong? 

***** 

Why never from a sky clear everywhere 
Does Jupiter upon the lands hurl down 
His thunderbolts, and thunder-booms outpour? 
Or, when the clouds have come, does he descend 
Then into them that nigh at hand he thence 
The striking of his weapon may direct ? 
***** 

Why lofty places seeks out Jupiter, 

And why most numerous vestiges find we 
Traced of his fires on lonely mountain-tops? 


346 FROM KLOPSTOCK’S “MESSIAH. 


FROM KLOPSTOCK’S “MESSIAH.”* 

Literally translated. 

[The Divine Father and the Divine Son are in council concerning 
human redemption.] 

So spake he and ceased speaking. While they 
spake, 

The two Eternal Ones, there went through all 
The universe a shudder full of awe. 

Souls that but now were forming, nor to think 
Had yet begun, trembled and learned to feel. 

A mighty quaking seized the seraph, smote 
His heart in him, while round about him lay 
Waiting, as waits the earth the coming storm, 

The silence-keeping circle of his world. 

Soft transports only came into the souls 
Of Christians yet to be, and sweet-absorbing sense 
Of everlasting life ! But impotent, 


* From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. vi., pp. 45, 46. 


FROM KLOPSTOCK'S “MESSIAH.” 347 

And only of despairing capable 
Now, impotent to think blaspheming thoughts, 
Rushed ruining from their thrones in the abyss 
The spirits of hell. As down headlong they sank, 
On each there rolled a rock, rent under each 
The deep with dreadful rupture, while with noise 
Of thunder bellowed the profoundest hell. 


348 


KLOPSTOCK. 


KLOPSTOCK. 

EPIGRAM FROM LESSING.* 

A Klopstock who not warm in lauding ? 

In reading, everybody ? Nay. 

We for a little less applauding, 

And reading somewhat busier, pray. 

* From “Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. vi«, p. 76. 


ALONE I WANDERED . 


349 


“ALONE I WANDERED.”* 

FROM GOETHE. 

Alone I wandered 
Amid the wood, 

To look for nothing, 

In listless mood. 

I saw in shadow 
A floweret there, 

Like star it glittered, 

Like eye was fair. 

I thought to pluck it, 

When soft it spoke, 

“ So, then, to wither 
Must I be broke ? ” 


* From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. vi., p. 182. 


350 “ALONE I WANDERED .” 

With all its rootlets, 

I delved it out, 

To garden bore it 
Fair house about. 

There new I set it, 

In sheltered place ; 
Now still it bourgeons 
In blooming grace. 


THE BRIER-ROSE BROKEN . 


351 


THE BRIER-ROSE BROKEN.* 

FROM GOETHE. 

Saw a youth a brier-rose blow, 
Brier-rose on the heather, 

Young and morning-lovely so, 
Straight he ran to see the show, 
Gladsome altogether. 

Brier-rose, brier-rose, brier-rose red, 
Brier-rose on the heather. 

Quoth the youth : “ I sever thee, 
Brier-rose on the heather.” 

Quoth the rose: “ Forever thee 
Sting I to remember me, 

And to know thy tether.” 
Brier-rose, brier-rose, brier-rose red, 
Brier-rose on the heather. 


* From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. vi., p. 183. 


352 


THE BRIER-ROSE BROKEN. 


And the wilful youth he brake 
Brier-rose on the heather, 

Brier-rose fought and wound did make 
Her bestead not cry of ache, 

And he knew no tether. 

Brier-rose, brier-rose, brier-rose red, 
Brier-rose on the heather. 


EPIGRAM FROM BOILEAU. 


353 


EPIGRAM FROM BOILEAU* 

In vain, with thousandfold abuse, 

My foes, through all their works diffuse, 

Have thought to make me shocking to man¬ 
kind ; 

Cotin,f to bring my style to shame, 

Has played a much more easy game, 

He has his verses to my pen assigned ! 

* From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. v., p. 319. 
t The same versifier that Moli&re ridicules under the pseudonym, “ Trissotin,” 
in “ Les Femmes Savantes.” 


23 


354 EPIGRAM FROM MUSSET (ALFRED DE). 


EPIGRAM FROM MUSSET 
(ALFRED DE).* 

Lord Byron for model has served me., say you, 
You know not then Byron set Pulci in view ? 

Read up the Italians, you ’ll see if he stole. 
Nothing is any one’s, every one’s all. 

Dunce deep as a schoolmaster surely were he 
Who should dream left for him one word there 
could be 

That no man before him had hit upon yet; 

They somebody copy who cabbage-plants set. 


* From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. v., p. 307 . 


A QUATRAIN FROM VICTOR HUGO. 355 


A QUATRAIN FROM VICTOR HUGO.* 

Let us be like the bird for one moment alight 
Upon branches too frail to uphold, 

Who feels tremble the bough, but who sings in 
despite, 

Knowing well she has wings to unfold. 


* From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. v., p. 280. 


356 


THE OAK AND THE REED. 


THE OAK AND THE REED. 

FROM LA FONTAINE.* 

The Oak one day said to the Reed, 

“ Justly might you dame Nature blame; 

A wren’s weight would bow down your frame ; 
The lightest wind that chance may make 
Dimple the surface of the lake 
Your head bends low indeed, 

The while, like Caucasus, my front 
To meet the branding sun is wont, 

Nay, more, to take the tempest’s brunt. 

A blast you feel, I feel a breeze. 

Had you been born beneath my roof, 
Widespread, of leafage weather-proof, 

Less had you known your life to tease; 

I should have sheltered you from storm. 
But oftenest you rear your form 
On the moist limits of the realm of wind. 
Nature, methinks, against you sore has sinned. 


From “ Wilkinson’s Foreign Classics in English,” vol. v., p. 70 . 


THE OAK AND THE REED . 


357 


“ Your pity,” answers him the Reed, 

“ Bespeaks you kind; but spare your pain; 

I more than you may winds disdain. 

I bend, and break not. You, indeed, 
Against their dreadful strokes till now 
Have stood, nor tamed your back to bow: 

But wait we for the end.” 

Scarce had he spoke, 
When fiercely from the far horizon broke 
The wildest of the children, fullest fraught 
With terror, that till then the North had brought. 
The tree holds good ; the reed it bends. 
The wind redoubled might expends, 

And so well works that from his bed 
Him it uproots who nigh to heaven his head 
Held, and whose feet reached to the kingdom of 
the dead. 


35 $ LENVOI TO “THE LOTUS-EATERS." 


L’ENVOI TO “THE LOTUS-EATERS.” 

To follow the “ Choric Song ” in Tennyson's poem. 

So sang those ocean-weary heroes old, 

Drowsed with the drench of lotus in their brain 
Which drowned their passion for adventure bold 
And made them count all high endeavor vain, 
And every pleasure save quiescence pain. 

They loved the fading images of things 

Dear long ago, but wished them not again ; 

Lax love ! — without desire, whence only springs 
The spirit that in man is as the gift of wings. 

They wove themselves a climate out of dream, 
They feigned themselves a valley wholly fair, 
They lulled with lotus every lapsing stream, 

They hung and hushed each cataract in air; 

All sights, all sounds, they charmed to softness 
there. 


L'ENVOI TO “THE LOTUS-EATERS ” 359 


There should be there no trouble, no annoy, 

Not vexing hope, as surely not despair, 

Nothing but ease, ease unperturbed with joy, 

One long, long trance of ease, deep ease without 
alloy. 

But not the lotus, leaf and bloom, full feast, 

Could sate those feasters’ senses and their soul, 
To dull the dolorous sound that never ceased, 
Grew rather, in their ears — a sound of dole, 
Monotonous like the melancholy roll 
Of ocean ever breaking on his shore; 

Doom, couchant doom, moaned for them at the 
goal, 

And something after life was yet in store, 

The dreadful chance of ill to last forevermore! 


360 SOME STANZAS OF KEATS'S. 


SOME STANZAS OF KEATS’S 

AS THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN. 

Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 
And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

Forever piping songs forever new; 

More happy love! More happy, happy love ! 
Forever warm, and still to be enjoyed, 
Forever panting and forever young; 

All chance of change from perfect far above, 
Never with sweet fruition to be cloyed, 
Never with bitter disappointment stung. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest 


SOME STANZAS OF KEATS'S. 361 


What little town by river or sea-shore, 

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 

Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn ? 
Brave little town, thou shalt forevermore 
For these keep open welcome guarded well, 
Expecting still the happy home-return. 

O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 
Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity : Cold Pastoral! 

Age after age, unchangeably serene, 

Thou smilest sweet rebuke to our unrest, 
Preaching this wisdom with thy cheerful mien : 
“ Possessing beauty thou possessest all; 

Pause at that goal nor farther push thy 
quest.” 


362 


A SON'S FAREWELL . 


A SON’S FAREWELL. 

Mother, I leave thee now, 

The world hath won me for a while; 

Yet mourn not, mother, thou, 

My choice of this exile; 

Nay, rather, brace thy boy to bear 
A brave heart to the battle nigh, 

He knows, before him, and trust thou that Care, 
That wizard who writes wrinkles on the brow, 
Shall meet in me an eye 
To daunt him, that, beneath a smile 
Of gladness mine, a certain secret wile 
Of hopeful in me, he shall bow 
Him and dissolve away — this forehead smooth 
Still, such as when thy finger-strokes to soothe 
Were on it, even so smooth and fair, 

And not one wizard’s wrinkle written there ! 


A SON'S FAREWELL. 


363 


But, oh, my mother, how, 

When unfamiliar faces are around 
Me, and my way is through the toil 

That makes me tire to think of, and the ground 
Is dangerous before me; ’mid the broil 
Of the life-battle, will my heart remember thee! 

And it will cheer me, mother, 

And my step shall grow full fresh again, 

If erst it faltered, and another 

And a stouter heart shall beat within 
My breast; and I shall bid my brother 
In the battle-harness gather then 
Courage from me ; for I shall know 
Kind eyes are watching my career, 

And gentle heart-beats gently go 
For me, in altern hope and fear. 

Then, mother, do not weep! 

Lift up that bowed head! 

I feel a kindred sadness creep 
O’er me, I would were fled. 

Come, mother, press my hand; 

Kiss me a glad good-bye. 

Why, here in mutual tears we stand — 

Well, mother, a sad good-bye! 


A MODERN GREATHEART. 


3°4' 


A MODERN GREATHEART. 

You needed but to see him nigh — 

Greatheart, from out John Bunyan’s book, 
Yea, it was Greatheart standing by! 

You knew him by the lion look. 

The strength, the courage, the high hope, 
That stalwart living presence breathed — 
Largeness, magnanimous breadth of scope, 
An aureole round the forehead wreathed! 

Clear, like a bugle note, the voice, 

Or rousing, like a trumpet call — 

A sound to make the heart rejoice, 

Far-heard amid the audience-hall. 

Thus borne, the prompt, the certain speech! 

No hasty, heady overflow 
Of mere words without power to teach, 

But quick-ripe thought best uttered so. 


A MODERN GREATHEART. 


3^5 


Born master of assemblies such, 

• Yet sage and sane in counsel he, 

Well capable of nicest touch 
To fit a problem with its key. 

The lion and the lamb in one — 

To what engaging gentleness, 

When once the strenuous strife was done, 
That giant strength could tame its stress! 

Then would the voice to soft and low 
Drop from its ringing resonance, 

And a meek light make mild the glow 
Of eager earnest in the glance. 

A noble nature, to a grace 

Of noble above nature brought; 

Through Christ beholden face to face 
The manly into Christian wrought! 

O Greatheart brother, how shall we 
Thy heartsome hail and welcome miss! 

Here — but we there, soon following thee, 
May find it portion of our bliss! 


366 


CHRYSALIS . 


CHRYSALIS. 

It was a morning of the prime of spring; 

The broad bright sunshine brooding on the earth, 
As with the wooing of a world-wide wing, 

Warmed it and filled it with desires of birth. 

Amid the quick endeavor to be born, 

The travail out of darkness into light, 

Rife round me everywhere that vernal morn, 

A tiny struggle thwarted drew my sight. 

A little creature in a chrysalis 

Fluttered his wings in vain to win him free; 
Some gross adhesion glued him fast in this, 

Lately his home, his prison come to be. 

I watched his striving, and I pitied him; 

Within that little heart swelled large emprise ; 
He longed to leave his lowly dwelling dim, 

And on exultant pinion seek the skies. 


CHRYSALIS. 


367 


" He shall accomplish his desire,” I said; 

“ With but a finger-touch from me to part 
The bond that binds the living to the dead, 

He on his upward way forthwith shall start.” 

Alas, I freed him from his thrall too soon; 

He was not ready for the open air; 

He needed yet to bide in his cocoon 

Till the strength grew that could his weight 
upbear. 

I saw a fledgling destined for the sky, 

Useless his pinions, grovel on the ground, 
Amerced forever of his birthright high, 

And to those feeble, faltering motions bound. 

Musing the tragedy I thus beheld, 

I seemed to see enacted there in small 
The fortune that were mine, were I compelled 
Hence, and my soul not ready all in all! 


363 


O ELDER BROTHER! 


O ELDER BROTHER! 

When Jesus in the wilderness 
Those forty days had passed 
And ended in temptation’s stress 
The bitterness of fast, 

His soul fell faint with hunger sore 
Amid that solitude: 

Then angels of their heavenly store 
Brought Him immortal food. 


And when, before the last assay 
Of agony and death, 

He in His anguished need to pray 
Poured out His holy breath, 

An angel came and strengthened Him 
To take the dreadful cup 
His Father gave Him — to the brim 
With pain for us filled up. 


0 ELDER BROTHER! 


369 


O Elder Brother, succored so, 
Remember us, we pray, 

When in temptation or in woe 
We need a heavenly stay; 

And charge the blessed angels how 
They serve their Lord again 
Each time they succor any now 
As Him they succored then! 


24 


3/o 


SABBATHS. A SIMILE. 


SABBATHS. A SIMILE. 

As those who build a bridge across some tide 
That onward to the ocean, affluent, pours 
In brimming current equal to its shores, 
Through channel water-worn so deep and wide 
That half the navies of the world might ride 
Thereon, as on the Atlantic’s liquid floors 
Heaving their convex to the utmost doors 
Of many nations by that ocean-side — 

As such bridge-builders to the bottom sink 
And anchor, full amid the mighty stress, 

A shelter for themselves, with upper brink 
Above the height to which the wave will press, 
And of compacture water-proof, no chink 
Not caulked, to give the investing flood ingress; 

So, safe amid the rush and roar of time 
And tumult of incessant toil and strife 
Filling the measure of our mortal life 
Even from the fair beginning, the fresh prime — 


SABBATHS. A SIMILE. 


3/1 


That brief impossibility of crime ! — 

Down to the day when Death’s descending knife 
Us from a state of trouble and labor rife 
Frees, for the last lone voyage and sublime — 

At intervals, amidst this long turmoil, 

Which else would swell and oversweep us quite, 
God of His grace has fixed escapes from toil, 
Truces of respite and reprieve from fight; — 

But we may wreck our sabbaths and despoil 
Ourselves of refuge from the world’s despite! 


3 72 


A RE VERY. 


A REVERY. 
l’allegro’s. 

“ He that has light within his own clear breast, 

May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day.” 

The sunshine of the heaven is sweet, 
And light that loving eyes impart; 
But sweeter than all other is 
The sunshine of the heart. 

The sunshine of the heart abides; 

It hath no need of outer sun — 

It lights, it warms, irradiates, 

By its own power alone. 

The sun which is sphered in the heart 
Hath neither falling nor eclipse; 
There is a twilight — that is night 
When dreams smile on the lips. 


A RE VERY. 


373 


The landscapes of the spirit then 
Are peopled with the dearest fairies; 
Sweet gliding myths, now come, now gone, 
They glide, not any tarries. 

You cannot fix their fragile forms; 

Air is not so intangible: 

You wake—oh, aye, this cheerful sun! 
That faded realm of fanciful! 


374 


ASCENDENCY. 


ASCENDENCY. 

EARL OF CHATHAM. 

“Sugar, my lords,” he said — and paused a 
breath — 

In that proud presence this his maiden word ; 
Followed an instant’s stillness deep as death; 
Derisive laughter then the stillness stirred. 

Haply those haughty heirs of ancient blood 
Deemed that their fresh-made fellow in the 
hall 

Faltered to feel the unaccustomed flood 
Of old pretension frowning from them all. 

The term amused them. “ Sugar ” ! A good 
joke ! 

This upstart lord was such a merry man! 
They really now were tickled fit to choke, 

And round their ranks the lordly titter ran. 


ASCENDENCY. 


375 


Intently he on one sole business bent, 

How to advance the profit of the state 
Straight to his task without ambages went, 

And named forthright his subject of debate. 

But at that titter, he drew up his height, 

In pride of manhood shaming pride of birth, 
Flashed from disdainful eyes to left and right 
Sword-strokes of scorn that quelled their heart 
of mirth. 

“ Sugar,” he said again, and they sat mute; 

“Sugar, my lords,” once more, and, “Who 
laughs now ? ” 

None laughed, but he stood ruler absolute, 
Thenceforward, with the thunder of his brow. 


376 


A PARABLE OF JOY. 


A PARABLE OF JOY. 

Once, in a season of slack-girded will, 

Seeking diversion from more grave emprise, 

I tasked my idling humor to devise 
How, harnessing nature through some simple skill, 
I might, from waters of a lakelet still, 

My own strength added, make a fountain rise, 
To flash its brightness to the sunny skies, 

And me with gladness of its beauty fill. 

Triumph, at last, to watch the water leap 
Exulting from the bosom of the lake! 

Then, with what grace of curved declining sweep, 
Did it, returning, into sparkles break ! 

I stayed my hand, more fully to admire, 

And saw my fountain suddenly expire ! 

In this I seemed a parable to see 

Of what ofttimes had happened with my heart; 
For, failing never, when I did my part, 

Obeying the Lord Christ, upward in me 
Joy, like a fountain gushing full and free 


A PAYABLE OF JOY. 377 

And bright and beautiful and strong, would start 
And thrills of life through all my being dart, 
Keen antepasts of immortality. 

But if, fond-minded to full-taste such bliss, 

In self-indulging luxury of ease 

And leisure and abandonment remiss, 

And soft, voluptuous will myself to please, 

I for a little to obey forbore, 

Then the joy failed and was a fount no more! 


378 A GRAVE , SWEET,\ GRACIOUS SOUL. 


A GRAVE, SWEET, GRACIOUS SOUL. 


A. H. 

A grave, sweet, gracious, chastened soul was he, 
Modest, yet not unconscious of his worth; 
Happy in rich enduement from his birth 
Of power, with will, the truth of things to see, 

He fourscore years refined his faculty 
Exploring wide the wisdom of the earth, 

With joy that stood to him in place of mirth, 
The scholar’s incommunicable glee. 

His was the wisely slow, deep-sounding mind, 
Of candor like the whiteness of pure light, 
Incapable to make a judgment blind 
Or not to fit it with expression right; 

Serene judicial temper, calmly kind, 

And conscience to do all as in God’s sight. 



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THANKSGIVING. 


379 


THANKSGIVING. 

Abounding thanks be Thine, O Lord, 
For all our heritage of good; 

But first we would our praise record 
For this Thy gift of gratitude. 

To every gladness we may add 
The gladness to be grateful too ; 

And purer joy man never had, 

Joy purer never angel knew, 

More generous joy, joy more intense, 
Than then the expanded spirit fills, 

When, large to match her debt immense, 
She with devout thanksgiving thrills. 

Therefore our hearts we pray make large 
This day for thankfulness to Thee ; 

Not that we may our debt discharge, 

But sweetly more indebted be ! 


38 o 


THA NKSGIVING. 


Thy nation — Lord, we would be Thine! 
Didst Thou not choose us for Thine own ? 

Oh, hold us still the choice divine, 

Forever, ever Thine alone ! —- 

Thy nation thanks Thee that, though late 
So deep entangled unawares 

In ways becoming ill a state 

That the high name of Christian bears, 

We now are so far free once more 

From war and bloodshed’s curse and stain 

Would God repentance might restore, 

With peace, our innocence again ! 

We thank Thee for the wave of wealth 
In gentle inundation rolled 

Over the land; and for the health 

Wide-spread — boon better far than gold ! 

We thank Thee for our brightening hopes 
That, from the Atlantic coast to where 

Our land to the Pacific slopes, 

All, south and north, one day shall wear 


THANKSGIVING . 


A glory woven of righteousness, 

Of peace, of purity, of power 

In temperate use for wrong’s redress, 
Fair, and more fair from hour to hour! 

We thank Thee for the spread of light 
In dawning round our darkened globe; 

We see, we see the shades of night 
Spurned from her like a cast-off robe! 

And Thee, Lord Jesus, throned on high 
At the right hand of power supreme, 

Thee, in these thanks, we glorify — 

Of thanks eternal Thou the theme ! 


382 


PHILLIPS BROOKS. 


PHILLIPS BROOKS. 

Such light, sucji heat, such life, such cheer, such 
power, 

Effulgent far, like virtue from the sun, 

In flood on flood all bounds to overrun 
And, unexhausted still from hour to hour, 

Pour everywhere profuse its affluent dower. 
Lavishing largess free on every one, 

Wealthy or poor or happy or undone, 

Welcomed to sit beneath the golden shower! 

This, yesterday; to-day, a different world : 

A living splendor in its fountain quenched, 

A great light-giver from its station hurled, 
Sudden, as had the midday sun been wrenched 
Out of his orbit, or his beams been furled, 

And the whole earth in other climate drenched ! 




































CHRIS T US VINDEX. 


383 


CHRISTUS VINDEX. 


1. 

O my Lord Christ, why sufferest Thou 
Such mocks of good in men to be? 

I stagger, and implore Thee now, 

Increase my faith to me! 

We so believed in him ! He was 
The form of Truth itself to us, 

Our image of the Righteous Cause — 

That he should fail us thus! 

He stood so straight, he looked so strong — 
We gloried in him for a tower 

Of refuge and defence from wrong — 

That he should crouch and cower! 

Our passion, is it grief, or wrath, 

Or shame, or pity, or despair, 

To see such beauty suffer scath, 

Such pride lie prostrate there ? 


3^4 


CHRISTUS VfNDEX. 


We feel so cheated, so betrayed, 

Stunned in our faculty of trust, 
Astonished, stricken, dumb, dismayed — 
He abject in the dust! 

High clomb our hopes with him, like vines 
That with the towering elm aspire; 

He stood — they flourished to the signs ; 
He fell — they mixed with mire. 


ii. 

What, then ? Shall we surrender hope 
And trust in nothing any more? 
Bitterly say, Good has no scope 
On this forsaken shore — 

“ Good ! ” ’T is a lie, there is no good, 
The fairest is the falsest — all, 

All is the devil’s, and I would 
The end at once might fall; 

Why teach my foolish hopes to climb? 

Whatever they might climb by, smit 
With hidden rottenness, in time 
Will to one doom submit — 


CHRISTUS VINDEX. 


385 


Shall we speak thus and quit the strife, 
Let triumph the foul fiend at will ? 

Or fiercer, with the feller knife, 

Front him, and fight him still? 

hi. 

Liar, he loves the living lie, 

His master falsehood is a man; 

Some man who says, Turn here your eye, 
Here your ideal scan; 

Who masks and mimes a while, all grace 
Of noble gift in mind and heart, 

The seeming seraph in his face 
Aflame for Abdiel’s part — 

Then sudden down the visor slips, 

Out smirks the fiend confessed to view, 

And, kisses tossed from finger-tips, 

“ Good-morrow,” mocks, to you ! 

“ Virtue, my name, at your command — 
Virtue, a name and nothing more; 

Your handsome rind, you understand, 

But hides a hollow core. 


2 5 


386 


CHRISTUS VINDEX. 


“ In fact, good friend, and sooth to say, 
The only truth is, Truth there’s none; 
Be thankful that I chanced your way 
To teach you thus this one.” 


IV. 

Out on the lie ! Vainly, thou Liar, 

Wilt thou, through each incarnate fraud, 

Here from the heart of hell expire 
Thy baleful breath abroad, 

To blast, to shrivel, to consume 
Fair faith in goodness to the root, 

To foul our vital air with fume, 

And smirch the face of things with soot! 

Vainly ! One Man above thy touch 
Abides for us a sure defence; 

Thanks unto God, thy power, though much, 
Is not omnipotence. 

Spew out thy spite! Wreak all thy might! 
Break upward hither from the pit! 

He on his height, in stainless light, 
Smiling at thee doth sit. 


CHRISTCSS VINDEX. 


387 


Christ sits and smiles at all thy wiles, 
Thou damned, beaten, braggart foe; 

No trick beguiles, no murk defiles, 

To Christ for help who go. 

With Him for tower, our hopes in flower 
May climb their height and fear no fall; 
The darkest hour of Satan’s power 
Is noonday brightness all! 


388 


w. m. r. 


W. M. T. 

A square-toed Scotchman, firm upon his base 
As if his feet were clamped there, to abide 
Whatever storm to shift them might betide, 
John Knox’s resolution on his face! 

He could at need have smitten with the mace, 
Could power’s browbeating menace have defied, 
Confronting pride with overtopping pride; 

But he loved more to magnify the grace 
Of God our Father in the gospel shown — 

To him, one-gospel, whether in the old, 

Or in the sweet new, testament made known. 
From these two mines he dug out ribs of gold, 
And wrought them into ingots of his own, 

Huge cubic shapes that spoke the master’s mould ! 


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BUT — 


389 


BUT — 

A stalwart man in stature and in mind, 

Brusque manners, toward browbeating verging 
near, 

Not wisely taken to import the mere 
Outspokenness of candor bluntly kind, 

For often but an artifice to blind 

You and not let his true deep thought appear, 
Or haply dash you with uneasy fear, 

If to a mood of diffidence inclined; 

But such abounding energy of will 
Felt in exhaustless putting forth of power, 

Vivific impulse radiant from him still, 

Great throbs of potency from hour to hour, 

That made you in his presence feel the thrill 
Of young life yours, an unsuspected dower! 


390 


A GOODLY TREE . 


A GOODLY TREE. 

(,Simile suggested by the semi-cente?inial anniversary of 
Dr. Alexander McLaren 1 s entrance on his ministry.') 

A goodly tree fast by a river brink — 

A full-fed river with its waters rolled 
An equal volume out of mountains old — 
Fruit-bearing, like those Pharpar gives to drink 
His current which the summers never shrink, 
Libation poured from Lebanon snow-cold ; 

Its branches all thick-hung with fruit of gold, 
Refreshment, should the vital spirits sink : 

Such he, deep-rooted on the pleasant shore 
Whereby the pure perennial river flows 
Of God’s word issuing fresh forevermore 
From the eternal throne, as in repose — 

So shall be said hereafter, — life-long bore 
That fruit which only from that watering grows! 



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TO BENEDICT ARNOLD. 


391 


TO BENEDICT ARNOLD. 

Man of thy country’s shame ! Arnold ! Thy kind 
Have written thus thy epitaph. And yet 
I grieve for thee, and wish I could forget 

The traitor, when thy story comes to mind, 

And love the patriot. I am not resigned 
To thy bad destiny of fame. I’d let 
Thy name quite pass from the world’s book 
and set 

All memory of thee aside to find 

A friendly shelter ’neath oblivion’s wave. 

I weep that men — like me — can fall so low ; 

And yet thou wast not all unworthy, though 

Thy baser call thee base, and the world praise. 
Still, spirit of the dead, I cannot brave 
Thy presence to me ! Go thy restless ways ! 


392 


JOHN HALL. 


JOHN HALL. 

An honest man, foursquare to all mankind; 

A simple man, with no ulterior aim 
To serve that if exposed had brought him shame 
Yet circumspect, to far forecast inclined, 

Who would not make a judgment rash and blind, 
But, having made it, whether praise or blame 
Followed, would hold it stanchly still the same, 
However suffering in his secret mind. 

A stalwart man in stature and in size, 

He stood before assemblies armed with all 
The force to wield them that in virtue lies. 

A preacher of the gospel such as Paul 

Preached it, he wished from men no other prize 
Than that they form that image of John Hall! 












DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY. 


393 


DWIGHT LYMAN MOODY. 

New England of New England was the stock; 
The root was suckled in New England soil; 

New England sweat of brow from honest toil 
Watered the springing shoot, and many a shock 
Of hardship shook it faster to the rock; 

On books to pore he burned no midnight oil, 
The ages had not heaped for him their spoil; 

But his tough strength at weariness could mock. 

Out of New England into the wide world, 
Strong by the East for broadening by the West, 
Flung where most mad the eddying currents 
swirled ! 

God said, “ Let be; will he abide the test?” 

That a man may, through faith, wherever hurled, 
Go conquering, God once more made manifest! 


394 


EUGENE BERSIER. 


EUGENE BERSIER. 

A massive mind, informed at last with grace 
Through culture, culture sedulous and long, 

And through high choice, outside the common 
throng, 

Of the selected spirits of the race 

Sought widely in whatever time or place 

For his companionship, the wise and strong, 

The lords of eloquence, the lords of song; 

These taught him a fine scorn of what was base, 
Nay, even of what was less good than the best, 

In art and aspiration. More, they spurred 
Him by example, till he had no rest; 

The trophies of Miltiades would gird 

At him caught shrinking from the supreme 
test — 

Thus he won hard his mastery with the Word. 















WHO \\ 


395 


WHO? 

Pulpit extravaganzist uncontrolled, 

As heady as a wild ass racing free 
And snuffing up the wind ! So, scorning he 
Pathway by other footsteps beaten, bold, 

To trackless regions, over mountains old, 

He hied him where his flying feet would flee 
All following, since no mortal eye could see 
They did to any clear direction hold ! 

But there at least he thundered on in tread 
As masterful as wayward, and no less 

Unweariable. And, strange thing to be said, 
That wild-ass ranger of the wilderness 

From each excursion brought some gospel bread 
Wherewith the gaping, hungering soul to bless ! 


396 


HIS CHOICE. 


HIS CHOICE. 


C. H. S. 

He might have been a ruler of the earth; 

With his ascendent gifts in many a kind, 

Gifts of the body, nobler of the mind, 

He was a sovereign by the right of birth. 

Rich in his dower of simple human worth, 

Wisdom he added, will, sure tact to find, 

By the deep guess of sympathy divined, 

Way to men’s hearts through pathos or through 
mirth. 

Clear like a silver trumpet rang his voice, 

Soft like a lute, and like an organ strong; 

Its music made the multitudes rejoice, 

Charming the ear with eloquence like song. 

Men would have crowned him; other was his 
choice — 

Crowning from Him to whom all crowns belong! 


I 


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YET AN AGREEABLE PERSON. 397 


YET AN AGREEABLE PERSON. 

A soft, suave manner masking a dry heart; 

Smug self-conceit beneath a modest mien ; 

Cold phlegm incapable of any keen 
Emotions such as, with some spirits, dart 
To the quick core of being, and impart 

Pleasure or pain the most intense; broad sheen 
As even of heavenly-mindedness serene 
Worn on the features with half-conscious art; 

An egoism incessantly alert, 

But complaisant incessantly, and bland, 

Seeking advantage — oft, when most inert 
Seeming, then readiest with prehensile hand 
To take the prize as his of just desert; 

Yet an agreeable person, understand ! 


398 


HENRY PARRY LID DON. 


HENRY PARRY LIDDON. 

A misplaced schoolman of the Middle Age, 
Out of due time by misadventure born 
And on our generation cast, forlorn 
Of fellowships his proper heritage, 

Congenial comrades of the mind to wage 
His equal combats with of lore, in scorn 
Of mean advantage, radiant like the morn 
Each combatant with ardor for the gage! 

Not his the Spirit of the Time! That front 
He faced instead, and gave it frown for frown. 

The bullying brag and swagger it was wont 
To see the rest incontinent go down 

Before, he laughed to scorn. In battle-brunt 
For the ascended Christ he won his crown ! 























































































WHICH? 


399 


WHICH? 

If the sun blazing in a cloudless sky 
At midnoon, in the fulness of his power 
And glory, should, at his meridian tower, 

Be smitten and sent ruining from on high, 

In dark thenceforth forever lost to lie: 

Or, if that same sun, holding still his dower 
Of steadfastness in station, hour by hour 
Should suffer alteration to the eye, 

Malignant alteration ! from his bright 
Appearance and intensity of pure 

To aspect sinister, whence came no light 
But only darkness visible; assure 

Me, for, myself, I am not sure, which sight 
Would of his fame and fate be symbol truer ! 


400 


JOHN HENRY NEWMAN . 


JOHN HENRY NEWMAN. 

He was a gracious figure, dear to men 
By merit, but by fortune yet more dear. 

Pausing a moment once in mid-career 
He told the story of his life. Now when 
Men saw he did this gracefully, and then 
His fair fame from aspersion foul to clear, 

They read him with magnanimous cheer on 
cheer, 

Gave him their hearts, since he gave them his — 
pen ! 

It grew at length the vogue to praise his style: 
The praise was partly generous tribute paid 
To one nigh alien in his native isle; 

Partly it was mere complaisance men laid 
At one’s feet whom, in true effect, the while, 
They flouted by not heeding what he said! 













TRANSFIGURED. 


401 


TRANSFIGURED. 

Pure after pain, the earth refined away, 

Serenely young, renewed in maiden bloom, 

Her fair hands folded on her heart, she lay 
In gentle death, and sanctified the room. 

The bright translucent clay to which she turned, 
The delicate sculpture’s reasserted grace, 

The pure white sheen that on her forehead burned 
And fixed the glow of sainthood in her face,— 

These traits of clear revival after death, 

This flicker of refusal to decay, 

We took for sign of soul surviving breath, 

And seal of resurrection on the clay. 

She ceased as doth a benediction cease, 

Her parting breath pronounced the low amen 
To life’s long toil to frame the whisper, Peace— 
The whisper perfect, wherefore breathe again ? 

26 


402 


THE APOSTLE PAUL. 


THE APOSTLE PAUL. 

A living and life-giving soul! A source 
And origin, exbaustless like the sea, 

Of impact, impulse, movement, energy ! 

A radiant centre throbbing thick with force, 

In pulses of momentum sped their course 
Wherever, down the lines of history, 

Thought has been moulding human destiny! 

A glorious voice, unchangeable to hoarse 
Or mute, but ever ringing loud and clear 
Its one great message in the ears of men: 

“Christ Jesus risen, ascended, from His sphere 
Above all height, beyond all finite ken, 

Bending to sway a sovereign sceptre here, 

And one day to return to earth again! ” 


JESUS. 


403 


JESUS. 

O Thou to whom the imperial spirit of Paul 
Bowed down in worship as to God Most High, 
Forefend that in fatuity I try 
To find for Thee some finite measure! All 
Endeavors of comparison must fall 
Futile in presence of infinity ! 

What human greatness then so great that I, 

By saying that Thou art greater, should extol 
Thee worthily ? 

Yet, is it true that Thou 
Wert infinite ? For Thou wert human ; yea, 
Didst to the burden of our sorrows bow; 
Obedient unto death becoming, lay 

Thy meek head in the sepulchre! Whom now, 
Thence risen, all ages and all worlds obey! 






T. W. 






















































































AFTERWARD . 


407 


AFTERWARD. 

1 799-1881. 

BY T. W. 

A pilgrim still, where, in an arid land, 

No Elim palms lend shade, nor fountains play 
To slake my thirst — so weary, worn, and gray ! 
But lo! while Marah’s bitter waters stand 
In pools, I reach the mystic river-strand, 

Adown whose western slope I feel my way 
With faltering step. Past eighty-two to-day, 

On life’s tired time-piece toils the dial-hand, 

Till yonder stands ajar the wicket-gate, 

Through which, oft swinging open, greets my eye 
An afterward beneath a fairer sky. 

Then courage, heart, have faith and watch and 
wait; 

The loved and kindred, thither crossed before, 

Are waving signals on the shining shore. 





































C. R. W. 
































































HARK! 


411 


HARK! 

BY C. R. W. 

A truant child o’ertaken by the dark, 

In sad bewilderment, where two ways meet; 
White robes of morning draggled ; and her feet 
Beclogged with mire : and many a bleeding mark 
Of awkward reach through briers, bristling stark, 
For flowers, or berries which she dares not eat, 
But clutches still; scared at her own heart’s beat, 
And crying to the lonesome sky. When, hark ! 

A voice ! And from that frightened heart a voice 
Responsive, thrilling up through cloud and night! 

“ My child ! ” “O father, take me to the light! ” 
Her apron emptied now from blessed choice ! 
Such, Lord, was I, when, through the dark, Thy call 
Made empty all my heart for Thee, my All. 


412 TO A WALNUT TREE IN OCTOBER . 


TO A WALNUT TREE IN OCTOBER. 

BY C. R. W. 

O starry-crested wave of autumn fire, 

In rapturous poise before my feasting eyes, 
Stirring dim memories ’neath blissful skies, 
Whereto my heart doth yearn,—poor, tuneless lyre!— 
And to whose matchless harmony aspire ! 

In what far morning, where no shadow lies, 

Amid what echoes of the glad surprise 
When light was born, didst weave thy strange attire? 
Didst garner sunshine from the emerald wells 
Where rainbows sleep ?—or, in the hidden ways 
Where diamonds sparkle, fill thy thirsty cells 
With living light to gild these perfect days ? 

No voice !—though such desire my heart impels 
To win thy wondrous meaning while I gaze ! 


34.77-9 





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